Blood and Ashes: A Kindred Tale
by EireCat
Summary: Where is the line drawn between saving a friend and abandoning your reason for living? A tale of blood, twisted love, and unwilling betrayal set in Baltimore. Based on Vampire: The Requiem.
1. The End is the Beginning is the End

_Author's Note: Been a while since there's been anything new from me, I know. This story may be a little hard to follow, since it's based on a game that was essentially a sequel to the first Baltimore Vampire game played in my group. It picks up where the first game left off. So the story itself and the character introductions are what they call in 'the biz' a cold start. However, I loved the story so much I couldn't help but put it into actual literary form. I've been told by my betas that the characters drive the story enough to make it relatively easy to follow, but that's what I hope you fine people will take the risk to read and tell me. I hope you enjoy. _

_Peace. EC._

_*********_

Six of us sat around the table and none of us looked each other in the eye.

I could smell the hint of acrid, burned flesh in the air, mingled with blood and rock dust and pure, simple fear. Seneschal Regal sat across from me. His dark Italian silk suit was grey with ash, the cuffs burned and frayed. He tapped his fingertips on the table lightly in absent rhythm to the song that Herald Rhodes was whistling beneath his breath: something new and obnoxious, which goes to show just how nervous Regal's tapping actually was. Yesterday, you wouldn't have had both of them at the same table without one of them failing to get up from it afterward. Now, they ignored each other. Now the air trembled with a tension all its own that had nothing to do with the six Kindred who sat like naughty school children waiting to be punished, any two of whom had a dozen reasons to want the other dead.

Six of us kept our eyes glued to the table. All of us knew why we had been called here.

We heard His footsteps before we saw Him. The floors were hardened oak, and the strike of His hard-soled shoes against the lacquered boards rang out with a mercilessly precise _Tick. Tack. Tick. Tack._

I felt Clark sink lower into his chair beside me.

_Good. Let him sweat a little._

But I was sweating myself. Or at least…I would have been, had I still been alive. Then He walked in and I forgot about Clark fidgeting next to me and Regal's nervous tapping and the cloying scent of Miss Blackwell's perfume. For a moment I forgot about everything and just let His presence wash over me like thunder.

Prince Alvise Moncinegro is not a very tall man. He might generously be said to approach six feet. He doesn't need to be tall. Or broad. Or heavily muscled. And He isn't. He's built like a cat; all lean muscle and dangerous grace. Thin as a blade and just as hard. It's his eyes, though… That's where your gaze will be driven when you rest it on him, sure as the sunrise. I've always loved his eyes. They're as green as the Mediterranean Sea. And they can be as warm.

Then, though… Then, they were as cold as flaked emerald, blazing into all of us with chilled fire, for that night, for the first time in decades, the familiar porcelain half-mask was missing from his face. A small detail to most, surely. But within the First Estate, every breath, every nuance, every choice has a meaning.

_He has nothing to hide,_ I thought. _And he demands that we also hide nothing._

I swallowed.

He sat slowly at the head of the table, lean, elegant hands steepled before his chin in a gesture I had come to know all too well. For a moment, he merely considered us all, watching with those pale, unblinking eyes as if he saw straight through our skins to the unbeating hearts beneath. Soft as a moth's beating wings, he tapped the tips of his white fingers together.

"So…" he purred softly. "Who wants to be the first?"

The silence was as heavy as lead, broken only as Rhodes lifted a hand and delicately coughed into it.

Alvise smiled.

"Mr. Clark. Perhaps you would be so kind."

It was not a question.

Eric Clark. Backstabbing, two-faced arms dealer. Self-styled Advocate of the rabble that passes for the Carthian movement in this city. The mere falling of his name from Alvise's lips caused an almost visible chill to settle over the room. He had sold ammunition and information to more people that had tried to kill me than I could count on one hand. Despite all this, I still called the man a friend. Maybe I saw him as the brother my parents never gave me. Maybe I'm just an idiot.

Clark sunk a little lower in his chair, a feat I had not thought possible. With all the significant pride within him, though, he managed to slowly draw himself back up, rubbing a grubby hand along the back of his neck.

"Well, let me tell you…"

"No, let me tell _you_ a story, Mr. Clark."

In less time than it takes a breathing man to blink, the Prince was on his feet, leaning his elegant hands heavily onto the table so hard the wood was groaning in protest as he lowered his face to an inch or two before the twitching arms dealer.

"I woke up this evening in a pleasant mood, Mr. Clark. I rolled off of the three Asian concubines I had been napping upon, stood and let my servants dress me in my favorite silken robe…it was a gift, you know. From the Prince of Milan. It took fourteen artists a thousand nights to complete it. Do you know the one? No? Well then…suffice to say that I dressed and made my way down to my private car."

Alvise pulled back from Clark slowly, and the smile that almost gently graced his face was an unpleasant sight, the pointed tips of his fangs just barely showing from beneath his pale lips. He folded his arms behind his back, and the perfectly tailored lines of his Armani suit didn't even wrinkle as he paced.

"I had my driver take me around the park twice before he turned for the wretched mess of downtown Baltimore's evening traffic. We entered my building…my –beloved- building…from the lower level. You know the entrance; the tunnel that passes beneath the library and runs a quarter mile or so before coming to the parking garage. I find it helps me avoid the more distasteful tangles of kine and their dirty horseless carriages. The boy wasn't at his station at the elevator, so I had to ring for the lift myself. However, I was feeling expansive, so it was of no great importance. But the elevator never came, Mr. Clark. Why do you think this was?"

"I—"

"Shut up. So I took the stairs, Mr. Clark. I came up to the ground floor of my beloved Ravenrook and opened the door. And somehow, Mr. Clark, instead of being greeted by the sight of my wonderfully expensive office and the pleasant evening secretary with the enormous breasts, I saw nothing but a pile of broken concrete and twisted sewer pipes spewing _refuse_ on what remained of my imported Persian carpeting. And I thought that perhaps…_perhaps_…it was only another one of Mercer's idiot doings and he'd somehow managed to destroy the structure of the first floor. Imagine my surprise, Mr. Clark…"

The Prince leaned forward slowly then, and the smile started to show more than the hint of the wicked fangs his perfect lips concealed.

"Imagine my surprise when I went around to the front of my very, very expensive office building to find that _instead_ of a very, very expensive office building…a building that I had spent over two hundred _years_ and several _million _dollars turning into an echelon of Kindred power and grace…I was faced with no more than a pile of _rubble_ and _REFUSE._"

His voice had grown steadily through this last diatribe, and though he never shouted, the growl in his voice was feral and white hot with fury. The smile was gone now, and his eyes were a green fire that pinned Clark lower in his chair than a dog on its belly.

"Now, _what_, Mr. Clark. What is it, _exactly_, that you have to TELL ME?"

Clark was nearly horizontal at this point, staring up at Alvise with the wide-eyed gaze of a mouse in the sights of a hungry and highly irritable cat. He licked his thin lips dryly and cleared his throat.

"Ravenrook… Ah… Ravenrook…fell down."

"You don't SAY, Mr. Clark!"

Alvise's joyous, surprised smile was quite possibly one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. It was gone in a heartbeat, though, and in the same instant he drew back with one elegant hand and struck Clark so hard across the face; the Carthian went head over heels off of his seat and sprawling onto the floor. The Prince whirled around then, and I almost stepped back myself as those burning eyes fell on me.

"Diana," he said, and his voice was all a smooth purr once more. "Perhaps _you_ can enlighten me further as to the happenings of last evening."

I swallowed slowly, the blood in my mouth thick and almost putrid. Had I Rhodes' silver tongue, I could have danced around what had happened and paint it in a light that made me out as some sort of savior, instead of the failure I too often was in His eyes. But I didn't have Rhodes' silver tongue. I had my own, and it was too often made of clay rather than silver; thick and heavy and stupid, and I had never been able to lie to Him.

So when those green eyes fell on me, I found myself spilling the story in bland, featureless phrases. How the Acolytes had stormed Ravenrook in a press for power that hadn't been seen since that mad Scotsman McGreggor met the sunrise. How Cercei and Regal had fought across the elegant expanse of the Prince's personal office until one was ash and the other in torpor. How Maureen had come on us all like a demon from the pits of Hades and it took all of us and a hail of gunfire to bring her down. How she had cursed the building and brought it down around us even in her death throes. How I was sorry, so sorry that I had failed…

He held up one thin hand before I could fully embarrass myself and shook his head, the distaste in his words twisting his lips just faintly.

"Enough, Diana." He took a slow breath through his nose, closing his eyes as if to gather the shreds of his calm before he addressed us again. "This…mess…this _embarrassment_ only serves to prove one very important point. Our enemies come down on us like a hammer because they think we are weak. For we _are_…weak."

Those beautiful eyes opened again, panning over the assembled Kindred with barely contained disdain.

"The First Estate was built upon one principle. Power in the hands of those with the strength and the knowledge to wield it. And we have failed in that principle, my _beloved_ Primogen. You have acted with all the rationality of five year old children fighting over sweets. You have held onto nothing with more force than the grip of an aging invalid and this… _This_. _Will_. _Change_. Am I understood?"

We all nodded soundlessly, and the Prince allowed a flicker of a smile to touch his cold features.

"Good. In one years' time I will hold a Gala. I will introduce the new members of the ruling Invictus…those who will fill the places left vacant by the recent…unpleasantness. In this span of time I expect every last one of you to keep your heads down and your necks off of the line. _Am I understood?"_

We nodded again, soundless. Desperate to be set free from the cold tyranny of that terrible stare.

"Good," he purred, his beautiful lips twisted in the upward hint of a smirk. "Get out of my sight."

They dashed for the door like frightened rabbits, no matter how much they tried to appear as if they moved with easy disinterest. I stood to follow as well, and then I felt his breath, warm and soft against my neck.

"Diana…" he whispered. "I have had a very unpleasant night. If you will follow me?"

His sheets were luxurious and lovely. They were blood red and silk, the thread count astronomically high, and against my naked skin, they felt as soft and cool as the brush of feathered angel wings. Soft and cool and still not as sweet as the touch of his hands as he gently stroked my hair, spilled across the perfect sculpture of his chest like blood on alabaster.

"You're pensive, Reeve," he murmured lazily, his breath just gently stirring the wayward wisps of my hair. "Usually I manage to drive distracting thought from your mind."

The soft words held a quiet warning as much as they held casual conversation, and I knew enough by now to recognize such a thing when I heard it, so I spoke quickly to ease such notions.

"And you did," I murmured quietly, daring to let my fingertips explore the line of his collarbone. He rewarded me with a quiet sound close to a purr. "But the Primogen has always proved to be untrustworthy and childish. I fear that merely introducing a handful of new Kin will do nothing but exacerbate an already teetering situation. I can not help but worry. That is my job, after all."

A quiet chuckle left the Prince and he turned onto his side, brushing his hand across my cheek in a rare and precious moment of tenderness.

"Silly little girl," he murmured. "There is caution and then there is simple paranoia. Watch and see. The Primogen will be filled again. The Invictus will hold this city as is right and proper. My enemies will know fear again. All will be well, little Reeve. All will be well."

My sigh stirred the hair that fell across his face, but I gave him a smile all the same.

"As you say, sire."

"I do say," he purred softly, rolling onto his side and sliding one cold hand up between my legs. "Now. It seems you require further distraction…"


	2. A Million Faces, Each a Million Lies

A year passed and once more I was staring at the Venetian. I checked the clock for the hundredth time, and for the thousandth time, I cursed the intricacies of the First Estate, and the cloud of silk they threw over a nest of poisoned thorns. It seemed simple enough, of course. That was the point. To make our complicated dance of truce and treachery seem as simple as the falling of leaves.

But it wasn't.

I am the Reeve. I had to arrive at the Gala long after the press of neonates and nameless riffraff. I could even safely arrive after the majority of the Advocates, as none that remain were currently old enough to hold age over my head save perhaps that duplicitous "Father" Reinhardt, and he had only been in the city for a little over a year now, so his rank was tenuous at best. After that, it began to get complicated as only the Invictus can make it. I was the Reeve, but I was, perhaps even more importantly, the favored pet of our beloved Prince. So I was allowed to arrive _after_ Almoner North, but if I dared approach the doors after the Senechal, those who understood the implications of such an act would know that I was making a very pointed statement. Herald Rhodes would be there early, but if I were there earlier than he was, I would be showing an obsequious turn that his office may have deserved but my mood did not make me likely to follow.

It was eleven forty-five. The Prince was due at midnight. I smoothed my hands over the dark indigo of my silk dress, teasing down wrinkles that I knew were not there. God damn, but I hated this entire pretty, silver, poisonous web. Hesitating in the shadows before the glittering light of the marquee could touch me, I saw Senechal Regal approaching from the corner of my eye. Pausing, I watched him approach and felt a thrill of subtle, wry triumph dance along my spine when he trailed his eyes over the assembled cars and waiting ghouls and did not see mine yet among them. Turning slightly as if in disinterest, I saw him search the shadows with those cold, clever eyes, watching for a gleam of silk that would announce my presence. I was too quick for him, though, and the shadows were now my home. His mouth twisted just slightly in displeasure, but to my eyes it was almost as if he had screamed obscenities and spit on the sidewalk. Good. Let him know that the Prince's dog stood higher than even all of his blue blood would allow. He sniffed once and passed through the Venetian's grand double doors, and I smiled quietly and at last followed.

The grand entrance hall of the Venetian theatre was packed with the bustle and bother of Baltmore's kindred population: painted, silk stained adders in peacock's feathers surrounded by the glittering gilding of my beautiful theatre and the whispering fawning of the Venetian's population of elegant, exotic Blood Dolls. I sighed faintly. It was pageantry and pagan worship all rolled into pretty bundle, like everything the First Estate did, and I was just as wrapped up within the package as the rest of them were. My fingers trailed along the neckline of my dress, fingering the delicate silver embellishments that decorated the low collar. Versace. More expensive than the first car I had ever purchased, but the Prince liked to see me in…elegance befitting my station, as he had put it once, so I painted myself up just like the rest of the peacocks and tried to still consider myself their better.

Such is the way of the First Estate.

And such it was that, as late as I arrived, when there were two faces I did not see among the assembled crowd, my heart gave an entirely unnecessary lurch. One was Dr. North. While the ways of vampire society often went over her head about as high as a weather balloon, the good doctor knew at least enough not to show up late to an event of this kind. Such a gesture was far beyond even her. Yet it was not her absence that entirely worried me. It was another absence that I noticed just as Herald Rhodes…now Master of Elysium Rhodes, I suddenly remembered…weasled up to my side and murmured softly in my ear while barely hiding the smirk in his voice.

"I notice your friend Mister Mercer hasn't seen fit to join us this evening. What a pity."

Lenny. I should have known. It had been a year since the Prince had held an event and the idiot was late for the very first one.

I turned my head and gave Rhodes a sweet smile.

"It's early yet, Keeper. You really shouldn't question the schedules of your betters."

I left Master Rhodes with his jaw still flapping and began to search the brightly colored crowd. No matter what corners I turned or conversations I interrupted, though, the sickening truth began to sink in that Lenny just wasn't there. Alvise would be furious.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered why I cared. Leonard Mercer had caused me nearly as much trouble as Clark, and certainly more…embarrassing trouble. And yet there was something about him… If I let myself think about it too much it just started to give me a headache. What I knew was that I _did_ care. I looked at Leonard Mercer…at Lenny…and I saw a mind that had been brilliant and clever and…and _fun._ And then some maniac turned him into a cursed monster, and that brilliant mind had been shattered. He'd look at me with those strange, sad eyes and I'd see a little lost dog. A puppy that had been kicked until all of the spark left it. And then there'd be a flash of a smile past the grime on his face, a spark of wit or a stupid joke and my heart would break a little at the thought of what was and what could have been. I don't like caring. Caring is dangerous and it's stupid. Lenny made me care and I loved him and hated him for it.

And now he was late…

"Fucking idiot…" I swore under my breath, ignoring the scathing look it earned me from the Daeva I was slipping past. As I completed my circuit of the room, I let a sigh escape my lips. It was no good. Lenny and Belinda. Both late and both the Kindred I would least like to see suffer under Alvise's considerable wrath. I ducked behind one of the elaborate pillars and dug my cellphone from my purse as I looked to the door with nervous apprehension at the Prince's impending arrival. Cursing the merciless hands of the clock, I dialed quickly.

"You've reached the cellphone of Dr. Belinda North of the St. Mercy emergency clinic. I'm afraid I'm not available right now, but if you wish to get in contact with me, please call the clinic and ask for extension 237 which will direct you to my office number. If this is an emergency…"

I rolled my eyes as her message droned on and on, tinny in my ear. God, this was just _designed_ to eat up minutes. Finally it came to an end, and as the familiar beep sounded, I tried to force a smile into my voice.

"Hello, Dr. North. This is Reeve Agrippa. We're all at the Gala and wondering where you've gone off to. It's about two minutes to midnight and we'd really _really_ love to see you! Give me a call."

I shut the phone and took an unnecessary breath before flipping it back open again and tapping out Lenny's number after a moment of thought. Again it rang an interminable amount of time before that familiar voice sounded again, soft and a little weary.

"Hey, this is Lenny's Choking Chickens and… You know what, this was gonna be a masturbation joke, but…just leave a message."

I cursed silently, but before I could say anything in reply to the soft, electric beep that followed, the grand double doors swung open and Alvise strolled in like the coming of a winter dawn.

A hush fell upon the assembled Kindred. Here was a predator among predators. A god among the dark angels that we children of the night were, and their silence spoke to him respect that no language of this Earth could put words to. He smiled and spread his hands as if accepting what was simply due to him, moving with understated grace to the grand chair that waited at the center of the stage.

"Kin of Baltimore," he began, and his words were soft, for he had no need to raise his velvet voice above the palpable hush. "Welcome to the evening's festivities. Before I open the floor to our mutual enjoyment, I would like to take care of the business of Court."

He made a subtle gesture and as I moved to stand behind my Prince's left shoulder, Master Rhodes stood forward with that self important smile that I always wanted to slap off of his face and a heavy, decorative staff. He slammed the staff three times into the floor and began the business of announcing the names of our new Invictus Court.

"The First Estate of Baltimore welcomes Terrance Howard, our Minister. The First Estate of Baltimore welcomes Jaqueline VonBeck, our Groom."

Most of them I didn't recognize anymore than I recognized the Kindred who stepped forward in response. It was no more than a motley, if elegant, parade of out of town Invictus invited in to swell our numbers, and I let my mind wander as new Advocates were named as well as Ministers and Knights and on and on…

And then my attention was very rudely caught as the sound system suddenly blazed into loud, obnoxious life, drowning out the simple beauty of the string quartet playing quietly in one corner. It was a deep, thudding song full of thumping bass and high pitched synthesizers that sounded like nothing so much as someone doing something horrible to a cat. I wrinkled my nose and saw several other Kindred do the same, all looking around to find the source of the offending stimuli. The Prince, though, made no move as if he noticed, and Master Rhodes, on seeing this lack of a reaction, made a face as if he had swallowed an entire lemon, letting his eyes drift down the list in his hand as he purred between slightly clenched teeth, "The First of State of Baltimore welcomes Master Jonathan Bills, our Master of Elys—"

I actually saw him skip a beat. The unflappable Mr. Rhodes stammered. It was delicious enough that for a moment I was distracted from the terrible noise. It was only a nanosecond worth of pause, though, and he cleared his throat.

"Master Jonathan Bills, our Master of Elysium."

There was a polite smattering of applause that quickly faded away as Master Johnathan Bills pushed his way through the crowd and swaggered to the throne.

He was—

He was…

Hm.

I can't easily get across to you how difficult it is to describe the…the spectacle that was Johnny Bills making his way across the floor. He looked no more than twenty or so, but he swaggered like a vampire who had walked with the first followers of Set. His platinum blonde hair was puffed up into some monstrosity of a spiked pompadour, shaved along his sideburns into three thin stripes. He wore a garment that I suppose could generously be called a jacket. It had impressively angular shoulderpads and was covered in poison green sequins that flickered and flashed in the gentle golden light of the Venetian like someone had thrown a disco ball into the treasure hoard of Avarice. The garment was left open to reveal his bare, muscular chest and the myriad of tribal style tattoos that covered his pectorals and stomach. I squinted, trying to make out the words that were inked in elaborate block letters just above his navel.

"Thugg 4 Death"

I held back the urge to throw up a little in my mouth. The light caught on his piercings, metal studs through his lower lip and eyebrow and ears, and on the gold rings that circled each of his long, white fingers as he gave an elaborate bow to the Prince. Five or six other vampires surrounded this monstrosity, each similarly dressed, and they waited for their leader to bow before the followed suit.

"Sheeeee-it, Al! Props for that mad intro, dude, it was like all…'What up, Balti-mo!"

He turned to the crowd, throwing up his hands in some kind of odd gesture.

"What up, BALTIMORE!"

He seemed to be waiting for some kind of applause, and to my surprise he actually got it. And it wasn't just the polite golf clap the Invictus generally gave whenever it felt obligated. At least a handful of the crowd was actually cheering. I could have sworn I heard Keeper Coolidge in the back actually say, "Woo!"

Odd. Very odd.

I swallowed, turning my eyes to the Prince in anticipation of the beating that was soon to follow. To my surprise, though, Alvise was actually smiling.

"Welcome, Master Bills. I hope you find Baltimore to your liking. This, of course, is the Venetian. We have workmen finishing up the touches on your new Elysium on the East side as we speak. I wish you good luck."

"Aw, hell, dawg. Johnny Bills makes his own luck, yo!"

The Prince chuckled. "Indeed, Master Bills. Indeed."

I noticed that my jaw had dropped a little bit and slowly closed it. Master… No. Keeper now. Keeper Rhodes looked like he had an eggplant lodged in his esophagus. It was almost enough to temper the taste of bile in my mouth. Almost.

I smelled something unpleasant behind me, and wasn't surprised when I turned to see one of my Hounds behind me. SingSing Tommy Shay.

SingSing was dirty and deplorable. He was a Korean War veteran with the vocabulary of a drunken Portuguese pirate, the fashion sense of a blind sociopath, and the drinking habits of an especially degenerate fish. He had a bottle of Wild Turkey in one hand. I thought I may have seen severed fingers floating at the bottom of it. Ugh.

"Oh, yeah," he wheezed. "The Invictus is definitely movin' up in the world."

I smirked, but had no chance to reply as Johnny Bills himself breezed past. His eyes were locked on mine, and I didn't much like the leering grin he was wearing. It didn't last long, though, as his distraction lead him to knock right into SingSing's Wild Turkey, spilling cheap whiskey all down the front of Master Bills' enormous white faux fur coat.

"Ahh, dude!" he screeched, wheeling back and glaring down at his dripping garment. "What the FUCK, old man? You messed up my threads, you old fuck! You tryin' to bring down a case of gold-plated ass beatin' on your wrinkleass head?"

I saw SingSing twitch and reflexively pulled back a little. The grizzled veteran lifted his unshaven chin, turning those deadened, hungry eyes onto Master Bills.

"I'm sorry, _boy_. What did you just say ta me?"

Instead of shrinking back like anyone with a brain in their head, though, I saw Jonathan Bills draw himself up slowly and stare down almost imperiously at Archon Shay. His voice dropped low, soft, cool and dangerous as he met Shay's eyes. I found myself finding somewhere else to look. It was a distinctly unsettling experience.

"I said, old man," Master Bills growled. "That you should step. The fuck. OFF." He shifted back suddenly, lunging back on his heels into a martial arts pose of…some sort.

"Hwaaaah!"

For a moment they stared at each other, two pitbulls in a china shop. And then I saw something that in my entire long requiem I have never seen the like of.

SingSing Tommy Shay backed down.

He shoved his battered fedora lower on his head, turned away and spit, muttering, "I don't have time for this chump."

I blinked and he was gone, and there was only myself and Master Bills who was once more smiling and preening as he pressed close to me.

"Now then, fine ass momma… Where were we?"

I don't know if it was good luck or ill that I was suddenly saved as through the droning of Rhodes' voice and the chattering around me, I heard another name called from the list.

"The First Estate of Baltimore and his Grace Prince Alvise the Just recognizes and welcomes Alder Gavino Gianpaulo Terche."

The vampire who stepped forward was tall and handsome. His dark hair was worn long down to his shoulders, carefully tousled to accent the five o'clock shadow that graced his chin. He was dressed impeccably, but still with traces of anachronisms that pegged him as one of the Elders if not an Ancient, his beautiful, charcoal grey suit accented by knee-high riding boots and a low slung sword belt that cradled an elegant rapier with a chased silver handle.

"Oh my god…" I whispered, and the soft words were as loud as a thunderclap to my ears in the heavy silence of the room as Alder Terche stepped forward to embrace Alvise as a brother would.

My Sire. I hadn't seen him since the business in Germany, and I knew then what I had known in Berlin. That whenever Gavino Terche left Florence, trouble was in the air.

Part of me wished that I could remember my Italian well enough to understand the rapid words that they exchanged, affectionate smiles on each of their faces. Then Gavino turned so the rest of the assembly could hear, switching for a moment to heavily accented English.

"I bring a gift for an old friend in payment of an old debt. As it seems he needs me to watch his back all over again."

Nervous laughter raced across the room like ripples over water and I lifted my eyes to my Sire, trying to search his face for a hint of what was to come. He caught my gaze and flashed his elongated canines in a smile that I wished I had more wit to interpret. My attention was torn away, however, as he made a florid gesture that was part a bow, lifting one long hand to the door at the back of the enormous room.

The doors at the back swung open again, and three figures stepped silently into view and made their way to stand at attention before Alvise's seat. There was a tall and broad shouldered man, tattooed and bald with cold, grey eyes, a thin, lanky young man with tousled black hair, and a woman.

A woman.

I narrowed my eyes slightly, looking her over from top to toe. Beautiful. She was beautiful. Waves of coppery red hair that fell in ringlets down to her perfect breasts, pouting lips that were curved up in an appreciative smile as she lifted her eyes to the Prince.

MY Prince.

I forced the red out of my vision in time to hear my Sire speaking again.

"For you. Three Asps. Three silent shadows to join the fourth I sent to you all those years ago. One for the left hand. One for the right. One before and behind you, si?"

"Si."

Alvise laughed and grinned in pleasure, clapping Gavino on the back. His eyes, on the other hand, were resting on that woman. Devouring her.

_She was beautiful…_

I felt the Beast rising within me and as Gavino spoke the names of my new brothers and sister _Ilyana her name is Ilyana_ I melted back silently, trying to force back the scarlet hate that was clouding my vision. My Sire drew away from the Prince with a last kiss to each of Alvise's cheeks and I caught his arm, drawing him quietly aside.

"Ah, Diana!" he murmured with a smile. "My beautiful daughter. How are you?"

"Just the berries," I murmured with a sweet smile.

He smiled back, a hint of wicked mischief dancing in the emerald embers of his eyes.

"So I see, so I see. We really don't see enough of each other, Diana. How I've missed you. I only hope this new gift to my beloved friend can…ease some of the burden on your shoulders. Give you some free time, si?"

I felt my teeth starting to grind together, though the smile remained on my face.

"Yes, sir. Of course. Thank you."

He smiled and kissed my cheek, and I felt just the hint of hungry fangs pressing against my skin.

"Buon." He pulled away as if to rejoin the crowd and he was no more than a pace or two away before I spoke his name softly again.

"Gavino?"

He smiled again, lifting his eyes to me once more.

"Yes, Diana?"

I stepped close then, our lips only a fraction apart as if we may kiss as I whispered, "Next time? No more pretty ones."

He laughed

I turned abruptly away from him, silk swirling around my ankles like a miniature whirlwind. I chanced a glance in Ilyana's direction again, and when I caught the flash of her perfect smile…the way her smoking eyes rested firmly on Alvise's face…the way my own Sire laughed again as he caught me looking…I had to breathe again.

I pushed past Gavino and headed for the door, only barely listening to Master Rhode's reedy tenor as he announced another name, only barely registering the words, "LeCroix…" and "Prince of Detroit…"

Another Prince in the city. Another target for the fucking rabid Carthians while I'm already distracted and…

Absolutely the goddam berries.

I stormed out of the Venetian. I didn't know where I was going. I don't know how far I would have gotten or in what direction if I hadn't seen that thin, lonely figure stumbling slowly down the street.

"Lenny?" I whispered. When the figure lifted its head in confusion and pain I found myself running to him, grabbing that lanky frame up in my arms and trying to keep from screaming into his face.

"Where have you been?! Do you have any idea what time it is?? Alvise is going to _kill_ you! I—"

He lifted his eyes slowly to me, blinking a little as he ran his grubby hands slowly over the torn material of his ragged tuxedo.

"I'm…I'm late. I have to go. I have to go, I can't be late."

He absently toyed with another tear in his clothing and it was then that the state he was in finally sank into my frazzled consciousness. He looked terrible. I mean…terrible. Lenny always looked like shit, but this was above and beyond even his usual efforts. His tux may have been nice in 1978, but even if you were to ignore the dated fashion, it was an absolute wreck: torn and battered and covered in splashes of dark, insidious stains. His thin cheeks were both caked dark with dried blood and his hands were torn and scraped as if he had been fighting…

Fighting what?

"Jesus, Lenny," I whispered, reaching up to take his face in my hands so he'd hold still. "What happened to you?"

"I'm late." He pulled away from my hands, stumbling again toward the Venetian's bright Marquee. "I'm late, Diana and you can't can't you can't be late he's gonna be so mad…"

I chased after him, catching his hands again.

"You can't go in!" I whispered desperately. "Not like this!" I tightened my grip on his wrists, feeling them trembling in my grasp. "Lenny…" I whispered, softening my touch just slightly as I searched the confusion in his eyes for some sign of my friend. "Lenny, you're upset. Go home. Just go home and rest."

He blinked, and for a moment I thought I saw the flash of recognition within them before he blinked again and those strange, silver eyes of his were lost to me once more.

"I can't…" he stammered. "I can't, Diana, I can't the Prince says I have to go and I have to go or he'll do…he'll do things…"

"You let me handle Alvise. I'll talk to him."

"He won't LISTEN!"

Suddenly, he was grabbing me. His hands were thin and boney and he gripped my bare shoulders so tightly I felt the bones beneath creak together in protest. His strange eyes were terrifying in their intensity, burning into mine as for a moment the familiar light returned to them.

_Mirrors. They look just like mirrors. _

_I can see myself in his eyes._

"He won't listen, Diana. Diana, you'll tell him but he won't he won't _listen_…"

I bit my lower lip until I tasted blood, and once more I searched his face. I found nothing there that would help me, though, and eventually I only sighed.

"All right," I said softly, soothingly. "All right, but let's get you cleaned up, okay?" I smoothed the hair away from his face, frowning at the way he still shook.

"We'll get you cleaned up and into a new suit and you'll look great for the party."

He said nothing in reply, but this time he didn't fight me when I took his hands and led him quickly to one of the side entrances. Through some gift of fortune, no one saw us, and I managed to get him smuggled upstairs and into one of the unused dressing rooms. I sat him on the bed and then turned to fill one of the wash basins with water. I wrung out a cloth in the basin and pressed the cold fabric to his cheek, dabbing away the clotted red.

"Stay in here and clean up," I said quietly. "I'll speak with Alvise."

He gave me no reply, and after a moment of watching him stare into space, I rose slowly to my feet and slipped out. I caught the attention of one of the passing Ghouls with the clearing of my throat, and when he stopped and looked at me expectantly, I gave him a smile.

"Master Mercer had some trouble getting to the event this evening. Please procure another tuxedo for him and make sure he's presentable."

The Ghoul gave me a deferential nod and I swept past him to make my way back to the assemblage. Apparently I was just in time. Master Rhodes was just finishing smarming his way through the introductions of the Prince of Detroit's delegation. Alvise murmured a few sweet words about a union of two great cities and other things I didn't particularly care about and then the Prince clapped his hands.

"And now, my dear Kin. I welcome you to enjoy the festivities this evening has to offer." There was a polite smattering of applause and the crowd dispersed to get back to their gossipmongering. I tried to lose myself in the crowd, to give myself a moment to think, but I made the mistake of catching Alvise's eyes and a slight lift of his brows was all it took to bring me to his side.

"Diana," he purred, offering one of those pale, beautiful hands to me. He drew me close, whispering in my ear as if we were lovers and he was speaking sweet nothings.

"I have been conversing with Master Rhodes, Diana. Do you know what he's told me?"

I just waited, knowing he would go on without my urging. I was not disappointed. Across the room I saw Keeper Rhodes. His eyes were locked on mine and he was grinning unpleasantly.

"He tells me that there are Kin missing from this event…an event that I told every Kin in this city was mandatory to attend. No one should be missing, Diana. Least of all the ones who are. Where is Madame North, Diana? Where is Master Mercer?"

I felt the mask of calm slipping over my features. It was comforting, like the touch of an old friend, and I inclined my head to my Prince respectfully.

"Madame North I have not been able to contact, though I have tried, sire. Master Mercer…" I hesitated just slightly before giving a shake to my head and looking back up to meet his gaze. Sometimes I would give my right hand for the ability to lie to him. "Master Mercer has just arrived."

One dark brow very slowly climbed Alvise's forehead.

"Just arrived? _Just_ arrived??"

_Oh shit…_

Anyone else watching would have seen him casually lift a hand to take my arm. Only I could feel his fingernails driving deeply enough into my skin to draw blood, and I carefully bit back a sound of pain as he drew me close.

"Bring Mercer to me."

I sucked in a sharp breath. "Sir, he's not well. Something happened to—"

"_Now_, Reeve!"

I drew back quickly, bowing my head low and turning to follow his order. He need not have bothered, though. For, as I turned, I saw a lonely figure making its way down the stairs.

Lenny was at least a little cleaner than he was when I'd dragged him in, which I was grateful for. Honestly, sometimes the little things are all you can ask. He was wearing a dark silk tuxedo that hung a little oddly off of his gangly frame and I paused a moment as I studied it. There was something vaguely familiar about that suit, but I just couldn't place it. My attention was drawn, then, by raised words behind me, and I turned my head in time to see the Prince of Detroit make his way once more up to Alvise.

"My friend," the big man rumbled, pressing a manicured hand to the breast of his pinstriped suit. "I really must commend you…"

I didn't hear the rest of what he said. It wasn't important. Lenny had pushed his way past me, his silver eyes suddenly as wide as a deer in the headlights of an oncoming bus, and he was stumbling toward the Prince of Detroit with shaking hands outstretched, whispering, "No. NO…"

"Lenny… Lenny, what are you _doing_??"

I tried to grab him, but he slipped past my hands with the ease of a cat and made his way to the two Princes, each of which had finally noticed his haphazard approach. Alvise looked furious. The Prince of Detroit looked absolutely disgusted, an expression which did not lighten as Lenny stepped forward and took the other vampire's face in his still grubby and torn hands.

"No…" he whispered. "No no no NO NO NO!"

"MERCER!"

I felt my dead heart leap into my throat. Alvise never raised his voice. Never. Oh god, he was so angry. Oh god…

The Prince grabbed Lenny by the lapels of his tuxedo jacket, ripping him away from LeCroix. Lenny struggled against him, fighting wildly to get back to Detroit's Prince.

"No, you don't understand! You have to get out! You have to get out before it's too late too late too late! GET OUT!"

Alvise bared his teeth, and I cringed inwardly as he threw Lenny down to the floor with a sickening crunch. I had never seen him this enraged before. His elongated canines were bared like a wild animal, his beautiful dark hair torn loose from the silver clip that held it back to fall across his face in feral waves.

"Mercer, I have had _enough_ of the embarrassment you impose on my court and myself."

Lenny pushed himself up on trembling arms.

"Alvise… You don't understand…."

The Prince's mouth snapped shut and he held out one pale hand. A gleeful Master Rhodes placed his elegant walking stick into his upturned palm, and Alvise drew back, striking Lenny savagely across the face with the heavy black wood. Blood and shattered teeth flew in an arc over the beautiful carpet.

Silence fell over the room. Every head turned to watch this spectacle. Some turned their eyes away. Some watched as hungry as hawks. I put a hand to my mouth as I watched, helpless to do anything. If I were to step in now… God alone knows what would happen to me.

Alvise brought his arm down again. And again. And again. And again. beating Lenny savagely into the carpet with the elegant and now blood-spattered cane. No one stepped forward. No one said anything. Lenny curled up around himself, trying to protect his head. He gave only a sigh, the softest whimper of pain and suddenly I could take it no longer.

Alvise raised his arm again and I found myself stepping forward. Somehow I heard my own voice lift in the silence of the room. Found my own hand resting as gentle as a whisper on the Prince's wrist.

"Alvise," I said softly, trying to still the trembling in my voice. "Alvise, I believe your point has been made. Let me take him from your sight so you may return to your guests."

He whirled his head around, and for a moment I felt what blood was in my face drain away as the green fire of his eyes locked on mine. For a moment, I was certain he was going to bring that cane down across my own face. Slowly, though, he lowered his arm, and the cold in his voice nearly left frost across my cheek.

"You will take him from my sight." His pale eyes lowered to the figure cowering at his feet, and he spoke slowly once again.

"Get out of my city, _Master_ Mercer. Get out and never let your face be seen on these streets again. You are exiled. Any Kin who sees you in Baltimore from this night on will ash you where you stand or suffer my displeasure. _Am I understood?_"

Lenny pushed himself slowly to his feet, cradling an arm that looked broken. He wavered as if he might fall and then slowly turned, making his way through the staring crowd toward the door.

"Master Mercer," Alvise's voice sounded again and Lenny stopped where he stood. The Prince's eyes were glittering with a dangerous light and I felt my heart lurch in my chest.

"Master Mercer, I believe that is _my_ tuxedo that you are wearing. Please remove it."

I felt the room go colder by a few degrees and suddenly I realized what it was that had been nagging at me. Oh god. Oh god, what stupid _fucking_ ghoul had taken one of the Prince's suits??

Lenny lifted his eyes to the Prince and I felt my heart break a little in my chest as the man I loved and the friend I couldn't save stared each other down. Slowly, fumbling, Lenny removed the elegant tuxedo that hung in folds on his thin frame, stripped down completely with nothing to cover his shame but the tittering of the gathered vampires.

A low, derisive laugh rippled through the gathered crowd, Carthian and Invictus alike sharing pleasure in the spectacle of one who was on the chopping block in their place this night. I took a step forward, fingering the thin straps of my evening gown. This was madness. I needed to save him from this. I could take off my own dress. Cover his shame until he was past the doors. My naked form and my place in this world were well known to all those gathered and I didn't give a fuck.

Then my eyes fell on Alvise and I stopped.

He was seething, his hands gripping the cane in his hands so hard that the dark wood was splintering around his pale fingers. He looked like a demon. Like a god. And I knew then that if I stepped forward to reach a hand out to my friend…that I would pay.

_Oh god, would I pay…_

He'd break my back again. He'd bring out the scourge with the wire hooks and flay my shoulders to the bone. He'd heat the iron brands in his beautiful fireplace until they turned white, and then he'd…  
I felt my stomach lurch and I stuffed a hand into my mouth as dark, bloody tears sprung into my eyes. I couldn't. I couldn't… It was selfish and cowardly but I thought of what would await me and I didn't step forward. I kept my place until Alvise turned away and the crowd returned to its quiet chattering and then I ran for the door.

It was starting to rain outside, gentle, frigid pinpricks of water that fell against my skin lightly as the strains of a song half remembered. I couldn't see Lenny through the mist gathering among the parked Bentleys and BMWs. I did see SingSing poking around at one end of the parking lot, loitering at the side of what looked like an Escalade tricked out by an autistic child, and I approached him quickly, pushing wet tendrils of hair out of my eyes.

"Archon Shay. Have you seen Master Mercer pass this way?"

Shay startled, and I almost thought I saw a flicker of guilt in his watery eyes as he faced me.

"Eh? Oh, the loony. Yeah, he went runnin' off that way. Now if you'll excuse me." He made a big show of turning and heading toward the Venetian's entrance again. It seemed for a moment that his footsteps were a little quicker than they should have been. No matter. Whatever he was up to, I'd deal with it later.

I pushed my hair, now growing tangled and matted with the falling rain, out of my face again, blinking in the gathering mist. Where the hell was he? I didn't think the practice of Celerity was among his—

No.

There he was.

He was running hard down the rain-slicked street, stumbling in the frigid black water where it was pooling into rushing rivers in the gutters.

"Lenny!"

I ran after him, stopping just long enough to kick off the silver stiletto heels I was wearing. The sidewalk was cold beneath my feet, but I barely noticed, intent on catching up to the fleeing figure before me.

"Lenny, Jesus, slow down!"

"Go away!"

He tripped as he turned to scream at me over his shoulder, skidding and stumbling onto the pavement in a tangled heap. He started to scramble to his feet again, but the time I gained as he levered himself up was enough for me to catch up and tackle him to the sidewalk again. He growled at me and snapped, but I had always been stronger than him. Had to be.

"Go away! Get the fuck off of me get the FUCK OFF!"

"Lenny, you're being an idiot," I growled, baring my teeth just slightly. I straddled his naked form roughly as my hands dug into his shoulders and I held him down. If we hadn't both been so upset, it would have been ridiculously awkward.

"You have to let me help you. Just let me help you. I know I should have done something in there and I'm sorry, but—"

Something flashed red in his eyes as they locked on mine, and I suddenly felt that wretched, dull squeezing now grown so familiar to my brain as he slammed my mind into a vice grip and twisted.

"_Turn around and walk away, Diana."_

I was halfway down the block before I realized what had happened, and I said something that would have made Gavino slap me across the face in my Childer days. I spun around on my heels and charged him again, slamming him roughly back to the ground with more force than was likely necessary, but I was sick of his tantrum and angry that he had Dominated me.

Again.

"Stop this! God dammit, Lenny, I'm sorry!"

I felt the stupid tears pricking at my eyes again. Lenny had this effect on me somehow. Through most of my Requiem, I considered myself very fortunate indeed. My Sire had taken me when I would have died anyhow. He raised me in the ways of the Invictus and the ways of a Hound. I had nothing to go back to in war torn Athens. No family. No home. Gavino had given me both. And he had given me purpose. I had a Master who was kind more than he was cruel. A Master who rewarded me when I was good and who, even when he was punishing me, stayed his hand before he ever took my unlife, and who kissed my cheeks and dried my tears when any such punishment had come to an end.

I was happy.

And then Lenny would come along and somehow… Somehow I'd look into his eyes and I'd see…

I'd see my heart all torn open and bleeding. I'd see a lonely little vampire who loved a man who beat her when he was angry. A man who would never…_never_… love her back. I'd see a woman with no friends closer than her pack of dogs. A woman who had no one she could truly trust. No one she could truly turn to. No one who would hold her when she was hurting. A woman who couldn't change a single one of these facts.

_I can see myself in his eyes…_

"I'm sorry…" I whispered again, and I don't know which one of us I was truly speaking to. "I should have done something. I should have said something. I just… I was scared, Lenny. I didn't—"

He turned his eyes slowly back to me. I thought he was going to speak. Whether it was to curse my name or kiss my cheek, though, I never had the chance to find out. It was at that moment that an explosion ripped through the air, sending me sprawling on top of Lenny as the ground beneath us shook and trembled.

"Holy FUCK!"

I looked behind myself, and past the lines of parked cars, I saw the flashing crimson of fire dancing against the dusky rose stone of the Venetian.

_Alvise… Oh my god, Alvise…_

Small and sad, I heard Lenny's voice behind me.

"I told you so…"

I found myself on my feet before I could even think. Somewhere behind that blaze, my Prince could be wounded. Could be dying… I sucked in a sharp breath, holding myself long enough to look back down at Lenny.

"My haven," I whispered. "You know where it is. Find me there later tonight. Just… Please."

Without waiting for his reply I turned and sprinted back to the blaze that hid the façade of my beautiful building.

I almost stumbled as the ground shook again when a second explosion ripped through the air, followed by a devastated and rather familiar shriek.

"Ah, shit, dude, my WHEELS!"


	3. Tainted Love

The Prince of Detroit was dead.

The smell of melted plastic and smoldering metal was still thick in the air as Alvise, Senechal Regal, Keeper Rhodes and I stood in the now empty entrance hall of the Venetian. The smoldering wreck that had been LeCroix's motorcade was gone, neatly cleaned away by Harpy Headly's deft machinations. Master Bills' ruined Escalade had been towed away too, followed by a lamenting Master Bills.

I hadn't seen Alvise truly give himself in to anger more than once or twice before that night. I'd never seen him scream in anger before that night, never worried for my life when I wasn't the one his wrath was truly directed at. That may be because when he's quiet and calm…that's when his anger was truly terrifying.

He was calm now, idly pacing the extent of the room as the three of us stood there beneath his gaze and avoided looking at each other.

"LeCroix was my friend," Alvise said softly, running gentle fingers over the heavy silver head of his cane. "My dear friend and a valuable ally. And now he's dead. Looking past your obvious failure in maintaining a properly secure perimeter, Diana, the only question that remains is how we're going to deal with the Carthians for pulling this damnable stunt."

"The Carthians?" I raised a brow, tilting my head slightly. "Sire, we have no indication that this was arranged by the Carthian movement. Mister Clark wouldn't—"

"I'm sorry, Diana," the Prince whirled on me suddenly, his dark eyes flashing as he tightened his hand on his cane. "Did I just hear you begin to bring voice to a sentence that would hold the _misguided_ assumption that Master Eric Clark wouldn't do something so _stupid_?"

Surprisingly enough, I was saved by Keeper Rhodes.

"I _think_," he began carefully, shooting a glance at me before he continued. "I think what Reeve Agrippa is trying to say, Your Highness, is that the Invictus as a whole must certainly give a very loud and very pointed message."

Alvise paused in his pacing and stared at Keeper Rhodes, silently raising a brow as he waited and watched the Keeper with cold eyes. Rhodes gave a slow smile.

"That We will not stand calmly by in the face of the treachery shown by the Carthian movement…of Detroit."

There was a pause. And then Alvise smiled.

"Master Rhodes. Perhaps there was a reason I didn't kill you after all."

Rhodes swallowed and gave a high pitched laugh, adjusting his spectacles.

"Indeed, Sire. Indeed."

He had his hands in my hair. Touching, caressing, devouring. God I loved his hands. God I loved it when he touched me. The Mekhet are burned deeper by fire, and each time his fingers glanced over my naked skin, I felt as if he were branding me with the kiss of an inferno. I wanted him. Needed him. Lived him. Loved him.

_Kiss me. _

It was an idle thought, though, no more than that. Sex he could never say no to. Love was another thing, and it was not mine to have. Not from him. And if not from him, then not from anyone. Sometimes, when he was feeling especially indulgent, he would lower his head and let me taste just the whisper of his mouth as he brushed his lips over mine. But he never kissed me. Never grabbed me by the back of the neck and claimed my mouth with hunger and fire and possession that silently screamed that he needed me just as much as I needed him.

I knew this. I accepted this. And so it was enough that he would touch me. Enough that when I looked up, I could see his head fall back and his brow tighten softly in pleasure, dark hair in gentle wisps falling over his face that stirred with every breath that left him in a quiet gasp or whispered moan.

I flicked my tongue over him again and savored the almost desperate purr that it earned me, relished the way he tightened his hands in my hair in encouragement. Once more I lifted my eyes to his face.

And then I saw it.

The Prince's bed chamber has beautiful mirrors on all of the walls. Antique silvered glass that's framed in golden gilding inlaid with pearl. It was not the artwork that drew my attention, though, but rather the flash of something I thought I saw within the reflected surface.

Lenny?

It was no more than a flicker of movement. A suggestion of his shadow and a sad pair of silver eyes. But it was enough to draw my gaze and make me stop what I was doing with my mouth. And this was enough to draw Alvise's attention quite abruptly.

"Is there something the matter, Diana?"

That quiet warning was in his voice again and I licked my lips, flicking my eyes to the mirror again. Nothing. There was nothing there. Perhaps it was only a trick of the light?

"Nothing, Sire," I whispered as I lowered my eyes, wrapping my fingers around him once more and just lightly stroking.

He stared at me for a long moment, something I couldn't identify flashing behind the emerald of his eyes.

"You know what, Diana," he murmured eventually, something close to boredom coloring his voice that only barely covered a hint of anger. "I think I've had enough of your company this evening. You may leave."

For a moment, I couldn't move.

_He didn't._

_He couldn't…_

But he was already on his feet, turning away from me and pulling on one of his beautiful silken robes. I felt that terrible, painful chill creeping up my spine and settling deep into my heart. But his back remained turned to me, and there was only one response left. I drew myself upward slowly, gathering my dress up from where it lay pooled in midnight blue swirls off to the side and turned for the door.

"Diana."

I paused, not daring to lift my eyes to him again but feeling the blood thrumming in my veins. Perhaps he had reconsidered. Perhaps he would forgive my little lapse. Perhaps…

"I want you to bring one of the new Khaibets to me. The woman."

All I could do was nod.

Once outside of his chamber, I took a moment to wipe the smudged signs of my weakness from beneath my eyes.

_Stupid. Why are you so stupid? You know you can't lie to him. You know he wont' keep you if you don't please him. You know…_

A muffled sob left me before I could stop myself, and I pressed a fist into my mouth so hard I felt my fangs cut into the skin of my knuckles.

_Stupid, useless bitch…_

Calm. I had to be calm. I drew the mask over my face again. Felt my features harden and cool as I slipped the straps of my dress up over my shoulders again. I am the Black Hound. If my regent is not pleased with me, then I must make certain he is pleased with another. That was my job, and it was my duty and my pleasure to fulfill it.

I slipped down the stairs lightly, trailing my fingertips over the brass railing. Gavino was in the entrance hall, the three new Khaibets standing at attention before him. I heard him chattering to them in quiet, almost threatening Italian. I caught only a word or two here and there. Something about "duty" and "perfection" and "with a chainsaw." I came up behind and cleared my throat just slightly, and he smiled as he turned to face me.

"Ah, Diana. How is it I can help you?"  
My face was impassive, my voice dead as I said simply, "I would like to speak with Miss Romanov if you are finished."

He smiled and clapped the girl on the back, pushing her toward me.

"Of course, of course. You will bond, si? Sisters now."

I gave him a tight smile and turned, expecting the redhead to follow me. I heard her close at my heels, and from the corner of my eye I could see her dark eyes vivid with curiosity and appraisal of her elegant surroundings. I brought our little promenade to a stop outside of Alvise's chamber and turned to face her. In her eyes I saw the same cool evaluation that I'm sure she saw in mine, and I forced a smile onto my face.

"Prince Moncinegro wishes to speak with you about your new duties. He awaits you within."

Her eyes flashed and she moved to brush past me. Before I knew it, my hand was around her throat and I had her pressed roughly against the wall, our faces only an inch or so apart.

"You are here in payment of a debt. You are property. You will eat, live, fuck, scheme, fight, kill and _die_ for HIM."

She bared her fangs just slightly but I only pulled her closer, lowering my voice to a whisper.

"And if you even _think_ about taking him away from me, my dear Hound Ilyana, I will wreck your pretty little face."

I dropped her roughly to the floor, the sickly sweet smile back on my face within seconds. She dusted herself off slowly, straightening her dress, and I saw her eyes flash briefly when she looked up at me again but now it was not hunger that touched her eyes but hatred.

She smiled then, a haughty little twist touching her lips as she let her gaze move over me from top to toes. Her smile grew a bit and she breezed past me, trilling the Rs she purred over her shoulder at me.

"Of course, Reeve Agrippa. Of course."

I watched the door close behind them.

I turned and ran.

Baltimore's subway system didn't last long at all. They began construction in 1887, finished in 1899 and realized the substrata of the city wasn't conducive at all to being full of tunnels in 1901. The end result is about 200 collective miles of broken, disused, and mostly inaccessible tunnel that lies hidden and forgotten below Baltimore's decaying streets.

It's quiet down there. No one comes but the rats and the homeless, and few if any of these come as deep into the dark of the subterranean labyrinth as my haven. Beyond the dripping of water and the echo of my own footsteps, then, there was usually only one sound to greet me any time I should return to the remains of the crumbling gothic platform station that I had made my home. This was the excited baying and barking of my dogs as they scented my impending arrival on the stale air.

I love dogs. They're strong and fast and loyal, qualities that are all only strengthened through the power of a blood bond. And they love me. Even my hellhounds, with the unnatural ferocity that the process of ghouling grants them, were still dogs at heart, and they'd lick my face and nuzzle at my hands and curl up around me when I slept for the day for no more than the price of a little bit of food.

So it was that when I was greeted with only silence as I descended the last rickety stairway before my home, I felt worry begin to gnaw at my heart even as I slowed my footsteps and reached for my guns. I strained my ears, forcing blood to them to heighten their reception of impulses as I stepped quietly along. Nothing. Nothing but the soft _click click click_ of my heels against the forgotten stone.

I paused a moment as I rounded the last turn, slipping silently out of my silver stilettos and tossing them carelessly but quietly aside to continue barefooted and silent. The tunnel was dark as sin, as it always was, highlighted for my shadow veiled eyes in shades of ebony. I could see the low entrance to my haven in the distance down the tunnel, and I slowed my steps just slightly in trepidation.

This turned out to be a vaguely lucky decision on my part. Had I been moving any faster, I may have broken something as my bare feet caught in a puddle of liquid and slipped, sending me sprawling onto the floor.

"_Shit…_" I hissed as my palms smacked against the crumbling brickwork and sent sprays of more of the cold, wetness over the walkway and onto my hands and neck and up into my open mouth.

_Blood._

I blinked slowly and reached to touch the puddle again, and this time my fingers came into contact with a scrap of bone still bearing shreds of torn flesh.

_What the fuck…_

I peered closer and that's what I saw it. A dismembered paw. A Labrador, maybe. Oh god.

I stood quickly, wiping my hands along my dress to clean them of gore and looked around the tunnel again with wide eyes. Piles of refuse lay against the walls. They always had. Broken stone and garbage but now…but now…

_Oh god…_

Now the rubble wasn't only stone. Only garbage. Now it was littered with corpses. Torn, broken, bloody corpses of dogs. All of my dogs… All of my dogs all of my dogs my dogs my…

I shoved a fist into my mouth again, my shoulders heaving against the urge to vomit my own blood onto the floor to mingle with that of my beloved friends'. Who could have done this? What? My shaking hands tightened on the hilts of my revolvers again and I stepped slowly forward, slipping into the small tunnel that would take me into my home.

It had taken me nearly six months and the power held in gallons of blood to lend the strength my arms required to pull the walls down around the ancient subway platform and close it off from the rest of the tunnelwork. I had never been one for decoration, and my haven was no different. A broken ticket kiosk served as my gun cabinet, cradling two spare sets of Smith and Wesson .500 revolvers. They weren't nearly as nice as the beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid set that Alvise had given me, but they were serviceable. And necessary, given my track record with losing weapons. There was also a selection of rifles and shotguns, pistols, handguns, concealable firearms and heavy revolvers, each lovingly arrayed in perfect order. The kiosk stood silent and empty save for its cargo, and the play of torchlight along its cracked and crumbling walls. The gun bench with its array of cleaning equipment and spare parts was empty as well. The computer desk off to the far wall gave off only a faint humming. All was well. It must have been only…

Then I saw the mirror.

It was a lovely thing. An antique tarnished bronze looking glass, likely Victorian, with a beautiful decorative frame, set on an ornate bronze stand. It was a work of art. What truly caught my attention, though, was the set of bloody footprints that left the mirror and wound through the pillared expanse of my haven to end at my bed where a dark figure sat indolently waiting. Pale fingers lazily stroked the heads of Cerberus and Garm, my ghouled Rottweiler and Doberman as they sat obediently at its feet.

My guns were tight in my hands before the picture had even fully registered, leveled unerringly at the figure as I bared my fangs. Then he lifted his head, and dark, tangled hair fell back away from a pale face with a dead smile. I blinked and felt a shaking breath leave me as I tried to keep the fear from my voice.

"Lenny?"

His lips turned upward at the corners just faintly, teasing that deadened smile into cold life. "Hello. Diana."

I softened my voice a little and gradually lowered the guns, trying to gain some control over the blood racing through my veins. "I could have _killed_ you. God dammit. Don't-"

Then I looked. I really looked at what was in front of me. The dogs. Lenny hated dogs. He _hated_ them. I remember when we were outside of the Blackwood manor, and the sight of five German Shepards had left him cowering in the passenger seat of the sedan. With the doors locked. While that moron Akahiru had gotten chewed into pieces.

Heh.

The point being, Lenny is terrified of them. And now he sat there like a king on his throne, just idly petting a pair of animals that would tear the throat out of a living…or unliving…man without a second of thought. Which could only mean that this wasn't Lenny. It wasn't Lenny at all.

I turned on my heels suddenly, walking quickly over to the gun bench and ignoring the feral smile that sharpened the planes of his face into cruel hardness.

"Go away. I don't want to talk to you."

Simon.

Lenny was… Lenny wasn't…right. I said his mind was shattered, and that was putting it quite literally. Sometimes he would forget things. I'd bring up something we'd done the night before and he'd just stare at me blankly as if I were talking about someone else entirely. Which eventually I had come to realize was exactly the case. Sometimes someone else was looking at me from behind those eyes, and it was Lenny and it wasn't Lenny at the same time. They had names. The laughing maniac. The shy little boy…

And Simon.

Simon was…darkness. He was hate and jealousy and rage and sadistic pleasure all wrapped up in blood. I didn't know where he came from. Didn't know where he hid behind Lenny's stupid jokes and shy smiles. I didn't really want to think about it. But he was there, and that was something I would just have to deal with. Years ago, when Lenny had sworn to us up and down that when Belinda had been raped and brutalized it hadn't been him, I'd believed him.

But that didn't mean that it hadn't been Simon.

"Sleeping alone tonight, Diana?"

I felt my jaw tightening as I began to disassemble the revolver and methodically clean it.

"I'm not discussing it with you. Piss off and bring Lenny back."

Lenny… No. Not Lenny. Simon. Simon laughed, a soft snort tinged with wry humor.

"Lenny's not here," he drawled almost lazily. "He's upset, Diana. Real upset. He needed some time to settle down." The grin returned to his face as he lifted his silver eyes to me again. "Or he might do something…stupid, Diana."

I scowled as the wire brush I was running through the barrel jabbed into my thumb and risked glaring over my shoulder at him.

"Stupid like what? Like listening to you?"

Simon's grin widened into that of a Chesire cat. "If Lenny didn't listen to me he'd be dead right now. I wasn't the one that had your dogs rip each other's guts out. I would have done that with my bare hands. No, Lenny had them do that. You see he came here with an idea in his head... a very bad one... and I had to stop him Diana. He routinely makes... poor decisions..."

I blinked, feeling my mouth drop open just slightly in disbelief.

"Lenny… did this?"

Simon narrowed his eyes just faintly, though that smile remained. "He's upset, Diana. Real. Upset."

"Then he should tell me what has him so upset. Or you should. I can't fix things if I don't know what's broken."

Simon's smiled, eyes glittering in the dark. "You know. Diana."

I set the revolver down sharply, barely missing slamming my thumb as the chamber flipped shut again.

"If I _knew,_ I wouldn't be going through the extremely unpleasant task of talking with….with _you._"

"Think. Diana. Think _real_ hard."

I opened my mouth and then shut it again, frowning.

"You're being ridiculous," I snapped. But Simon only grinned. I frowned and turned back to my guns. "You're full of shit. Lenny knows what my position is. It's not a secret and never has been. If he was shocked by what he saw when he shouldn't have god damn been looking in the first place, then he's a bigger fool than I'm willing to take him for."

A low growl left Simon, echoed by my dogs. "No Diana. You're a fool if you think that was the first time Lenny has seen that."

I blinked then and felt stolen blood rushing to my cheeks, glad for the cloak of shadows as I scowled at my gun. "That's none of his business. He... YOU have no right."

Simon furrowed his brow and clucked his tongue against his teeth.

"I don't watch you Diana. You don't interest me in the least. Much too old for

my tastes." For a moment, I almost considered being offended. "But Lenny... Lenny is very interested. Too interested for his own good. He's sensitive. Weak. And when you stood idly by while the Prince made a fool of him to every Kindred in the City... well that

was just too much for him to bear..."

For a long time I was silent, staring at the pieces scattered on the bench in front of me that when placed one within the other within the other could take a life. I pinned them down with my eyes as if I could force them to keep me grounded as well. Softly, so softly I heard my own voice lift out of the silence to answer him.

"I know," I whispered. "I know…"

And I did. Because he was right. Simon may have been evil and he may have been a sadistic bastard that only told me these things because he liked to make me squirm. But that didn't stop him from being absolutely right. Lenny was my friend. The only friend I had that at one point or another hadn't tried to kill me. And I had let him down. To speak against Alvise was to bring hellfire down on my head. To do so in public was suicide. But I could make that decision. I could take care of myself. Lenny couldn't. Lenny couldn't and so he had Simon. And until tonight he had had me. But because I'd been afraid of a little pain, I'd turned my back on him. I'd turned my back on him and now…

"He came here tonight to do something bad. He didn't know exactly what... but he had a good idea... Look." There was a bag at his feet. A brown paper bag like you might get from an all night grocery store. Or from a Home Depot. It was turned on its side, spilling its contents in a haphazard pile at Simon's feet. Handcuffs. Padlocks. Chain. Boltcutters. An acetylene torch. A gleaming, brand new handsaw.

He grinned again and I felt the tools I held cutting into my hands as I gripped them tighter. I felt traces of cold liquid sliding down my cheek and once again I cursed Lenny for what he did to me. Wherever he was hiding.

"I wanted to stop him, Simon," I whispered, my words sounding cold in the stagnant air of my tomb of a home. "I did. And no one...not even you...knows how hard it is to even -want- something that would cause him displeasure. He's... He can be terrible when he's angry."

Simon rolled his silver eyes as he reclined back on my featurless cotton sheets.

"Boohoo, Diana. Boo. Hoo."

I found myself on my feet suddenly, spinning around to face him as blood pooled in my hands where the wire cleaner brush bit cruelly into my palm.

"Lenny's seen it, I'm sure," I hissed. "But you don't watch, Simon. You don't watch. Do you want to see?" I lifted my hands to the thin straps that held my dress to my shoulders, pulling them down to bare my breasts, my stomach, my thighs… Everything.

There's a twisted scar at the hollow of my throat where He shoved a splinter of wood as wide as my thumb into my vocal chords and made me leave it there when he I said something that displeased him. He told me the next would be through my heart if I didn't stop the irritating cough it caused. Across my stomach there's a twisted brand in the shape of a coiled serpent. The same design as the iron pendant he favors. The same pendant that he let sit in the flickering coals of His fireplace while he nailed my hands and feet to his beautiful hardwood floor. He didn't want to destroy his sheets, he'd said. They were silk. They were a gift. He pulled on a thick leather glove so he wouldn't burn his hand…burn his hand when he pressed that white hot pendant into my belly and fucked me. He told me He'd take it away once I stopped screaming. That time…that time I had failed to keep a mob boss safe from Eric Clarke.

Always a reason. Always. He never hit me without a reason. Never lifted a hand against me except when I deserved it. But when he did lift a hand…he left a mark. So I would remember. The scars continued downward, highlighted in the flashing dance of the torchlight against my skin. Marks on my thighs and shins and feet and marring the curves of my hips, a spiderweb of memory painted out in silver scars.

I saw Simon's eyes flash in the torchlight but I couldn't read them, and abruptly he turned away from me. Anyone who didn't actually know him may think the sight had sickened him. Horrified him. I knew him. I knew better. Cruelty was Simon's canvas and he was an artist without peer. So when he turned from me I found myself wondering…why? Somewhere half-dead inside me, I found myself daring to hope that my friend was in there somewhere…finally fighting back. I smiled, but it was a thin, watery mockery of the expression, and it was to my friend that I spoke, not the monster that wore his face.

"Do you want to see…Lenny?" I whispered again softly. "Do you know what you have to _do_ to one of our kind to leave scars like this? Scars that won't heal with just a rush of blood?" I took a shaking breath and tried to cover myself with the light crossing of my hands before I looked up once more at the fiend in front of me. "Because _I_ know, Simon. I know it and I _live_ it every night of my Requiem that he's unhappy. So forgive me," I felt my voice break as I shook, naked and barren before him. "Forgive me if I can't break my heart over Lenny being a little _embarrassed._"

Simon turned on me again, then, his teeth bared in a smile that was more a snarl.

"Do ­_you_ want to see, Diana?" He lifted a hand in a mockingly elaborate gesture, his tattered, fingerless gloves as black as midnight against the white of his skin. I turned my head to look where he pointed, saw the beautiful old mirror standing silhouetted like a sentinel against the inconsistent light.

_Do you want to see…_

A vision flashed unbidden into my mind. Ilyana. Her slow, knowing smile. The lean, elegant lines of her legs. Her perfect fucking breasts.

_He loves a woman's curves. You know that. You've stroked his hair as he's spent endless hours just amusing himself with yours. Touch. Caress. Taste. Smile. And hers… Hers are so…_

Without wishing it, I found myself glancing reflexively down at my own barely adequate bosom.

_"You've barely given me a handful, Diana," he'd say as he'd smile up at me, teasing a nipple to hardness almost idly between finger and thumb. "I'm a greedy man." I always thought he was joking. He always smiled when he said it. I always thought…_

"No." My words were forced, sharp, and I looked quickly away.

_But she's so beautiful…_

I could feel his eyes burning into me. I could feel his smile on the back of my neck as he slid up behind me. His breath was cold, stirring the stray wisps of my hair as he pressed uncomfortably close. "Yes…" he whispered, one almost skeletal hand catching my chin to lift my face to his. "Yes. You do."

Almost gently he turned my head so I was once more staring into the dark depths of the mirror. Reflected in the shifting, restless surface I could see my own face and Simon's next to mine, his staring just as intently, if not more so, into the silvered glass.

His eyes glazed over and the glass surface began to shift and ripple like a pool of water disturbed by falling rain. It swirled sickeningly and I felt my stomach lurch until the image slowed and then settled.

There was a bed. Dark sheets. Beautiful, blood-red silk. Violent, rhythmic rocking motion. He was there. Pale and naked and perfect and he lay on his back and held her…held her almost tenderly by the hips as she straddled him. She was all curves and she was soft and beautiful and he relinquished his hold on her hips to reach up for her hands, twining their fingers together.

_"I love you…" _

The mirror gave no sound, but her full, perfect lips were easy to read. As easy as his.

_"As I you…"_

"Lies…" I heard myself whispering. "Lies only lies…and tricks of the light."

_As I you…_

My cheeks were wet. Somewhere in my head I knew this. Somewhere. In the here and now, though, I felt nothing but cold. Oh god it was so cold and he loved her he loved her he loved HER…

Pain.

Shudden, deep, blinding pain. Sharp and intense and dull and grating at the same time. I blinked slowly and when my eyes refocused I found I'd put my fist straight through that beautiful old mirror. I blinked once more. Slow. Deliberate. And then again and again and again I drove my knuckles into the mirror until it was no more than a pile of shattered glass and my hand no more than shredded meat barely grasping bone as I sank heavily to my knees.

Somewhere, over the ragged sobbing torn from my chest and the roaring in my ears, I heard Simon laughing. It was a dull, dead, awful sound. Slowly, he pushed himself to his full height, towering over my huddled form as he sidled up behind me as silent as a snake.

"You look like you could use a friend, Diana. I could be a friend…to you…"

I felt my shoulders shaking and I pushed a hand angrily through the bloody tears still wet on my cheeks, hating how I couldn't seem to stop the sobs that I had to force my myself to speak intelligibly past.

"Get out. Get out get the _fuck_ out of my home! You're nobody's friend. Not Lenny's. Not mine. Not mine…"

He knelt down next to me. His words were sweet and cold against my ear.

"Think about it Diana. I could... introduce myself to this whore, make you forget I came down here, and you could tell your Master with a contrite heart that you had no hand in it. That it must have been Lenny trying to seek revenge by killing the Prince's new favorite pet..."

At first his words barely sunk in. I rocked myself slowly, paying no heed to the glass that cut into my knees.

"Thirty years…" I whispered. "All I've done… All I've given…"

His words were soft, sweet poison. Cloying as perfume.

"All you have to do is say yes, Diana, and it will be you in that bed."

I lifted my eyes to him past the rivers of bloody tears that stained my cheeks.

"Why?" I whispered. "Why would you do that? You don't give a shit about me."

Simon smirked. "Because Lenny got us exiled, and I like it here, Diana. The atmosphere of Baltimore suits me very well, I think." He gave another low, derisive laugh. "I do this for you, and you keep your Hounds off of me and Lenny."

I lifted a hand, wiping my eyes as I turned them away from him.

"No…" I said softly after a moment, lifting my eyes back to the man towering over me. "No. Then I'd lose out the satisfaction of slitting her throat myself."

"Then you'd incriminate yourself," he hissed softly, kneeling down in front of me so I couldn't look away. "Why risk everything for this bitch?"

I lifted my eyes to his as if mesmerized, though I knew he was using no power against me. To kill an Asp was no small feat. But Simon had the ability. Simon had the drive. All I had to do was say yes. All I had to do…

"Do it, Diana," he whispered, those mirrored eyes flickering in the golden light.

_Her face, her breasts, her skin, all slick with sweat, all golden as the dawn beneath his hands…_

"Do it."

_His smile, his eyes, his laugh, his hands, his beautiful hands…_

_Do it…_

Something snapped inside me and I found myself suddenly on my feet, the stained remnants of my dress gathered around my modesty like a tattered shroud.

"Then so be it!" I snarled, feeling the Beast flare up within me to flash for a moment through my eyes. "I'm not a dog, no matter what anyone says! And I'll _not_ stand by while this…this…"

Simon smiled like a shark as he returned to the bed and pulled the coverlet off.

"Good. Very good, Diana."

Resting beneath the coverlet was another mirror. This one was a simple cheap full-length, probably picked up at the closest all-night Megamart. He lifted it off of the bed and rested it against the nearest wall before he turned back to me.

"Leave this here. I'll come back once I'm done to wipe your memory of my little visit."

I nodded only fractionally, my eyes once more locked on the broken shards of mirror beneath them. As he turned to step through the mirror, though, I lifted my head.

"Simon?" I said softly.

He paused, and I saw only the faintest flicker of light reflecting off of his eyes in the darkness as he looked over his shoulder at me.

I hesitated, gnawing my lower lip, but then her mocking smile flashed into my eyes again and I lifted them blazing once more to Simon.

"Make sure she knows."

He grinned.

"She will."

I felt myself smiling as I watched him step through the mirror and his reflection walk slowly away. The expression faded only slowly as I lifted a hand to the now solid glass, whispering though I knew he couldn't hear me, "And please…be careful…"


	4. Shoot Me Again

Alvise had no great care of the courtly life. Or at least…not of actually holding court itself. He loved the frippery and the finery, and he had an appreciation of the delicate art of polite backstabbing, but the drab business of listening to groveling pleas and barely concealed threats and petty bickering had always been a bit of a chore to him.

So I was surprised to find when I strode through the enormous entry hall of the Prince's grand tower Brookhaven near a week later, to find a makeshift court already apparently in session. Master Bills was standing in front of Alvise's throne with his hands outstretched as if in pleading supplication. Seneschal Regal, Archon Shay, Archon Blackwell and my new siblings stood arranged around him. I raised a brow and quietly slipped up along the side of the room, drifting close enough to listen.

"Shit, Al, you don' understand, yo! This city, it… Shit, dude, someone is _after_ my ass!"

The Prince lifted an elegant brow, tilting his head just faintly to one side.

"After you, Master Bills?"

The young vampire nodded emphatically, straightening the lapels of his neon purple blazer.

"Not like Johnny Bills can't handle himself, yo, but…this is getting' personal! Whoever this punk bitch is, they blew up my wheels! They ashed Tommy Bahama and Joey Backflip! That is takin' the game to _home_ _turf_, Al!"

Alvise took a slow, considering breath through his nose.

"Very well, Master Bills," he murmured. "I offer you a higher level of protection, then. I do not wish your Requiem in my city to be an unpleasant one. Archon Shay."

SingSing straightened up a little, coughing raggedly into one hand as he turned his deadened eyes on the Prince.

"You will see to it that Master Bills is no longer bothered by whatever ruffian is harassing him.

SingSing gave an unpleasant smile as he looked once more over at the young Master of Elysium.

"Sure, boss," he wheezed. "Sure…"

There was something distinctly unhealthy about the way he was grinning, but I didn't have too long to consider it, as Alvise soon raised his voice again.

"Now…to further business. I wish to speak with Dr. North. Has she yet been located?"

I shook my head and saw the others mirror the action even as I stepped quietly forward.

"I know at least that she hasn't returned my calls, Sire. It's entirely possible that she's merely busy with her clinic, but she hasn't been there at any of the points at which I stopped by, and considering the importance of recent events…" I took a slow breath and shook my head. "I think it unlikely she's merely got her head in the sand."

Alvise let his eyes drift over the rest of the assembly as he considered my words. After a few moments, he gave a low sound in the back of his throat that mingled a purr and a growl.

"Perhaps. It is then, a safe assumption that this is yet another instance of foul play in my city. Two within less than a fortnight…and I do not like coincidences. In this city, they're usually anything but."

A heavy sigh left his pale lips, just slightly parted, and I saw the flicker of his tongue stroking one ivory fang in contemplation.

"I think, then, that our best hope in locating the good doctor—"

"—would be givin' me a call. But I can't have expected you to catch onto that, Al."

The voice came from the back of the hall, low and touched with sarcasm and the hint of a hard to place East Coast accent. Eric Clark stood leaning back against the broad, gilded door, his dark hair as always tousled and partially shading his pale eyes; as if he'd just rolled out of bed after waking from a nightmare. He was smiling, but there was little humor in it.

The lines of Alvise's mouth tightened.

"Advocate Clark. How entirely pleasant. I feared I'd have to spend another evening without the highlight of your presence."

Clark smirked and reached down, digging within an inner pocket of his jacket for a moment. Without even realizing it, I felt my hand begin to tighten on the hilt of the heavy revolver at my side. It relaxed only slowly after he removed nothing more than a stick of cherry lipgloss, eyeing the Prince with flat mirth and without speaking as he applied the balm. He pressed his pale lips together with a soft sound of indolent enjoyment before he spoke again.

"Your court's looking a little thin, is all I'm saying. And maybe I'm saying that I know some things that might be done about that."

I wasn't the only one who saw the Prince's elegant hand shift its grip on the dark wood of the walking stick at his side.

"You're boring me, Master Clark. That's almost as dangerous as entertaining me. Please. Convince yourself to come to the point."

For a split second, I saw Clark flick his gaze to mine, and I almost saw something in his eyes….I don't know. A frustration, maybe. An irritation that I couldn't quite name and that flared up behind the expression of nonchalant schadenfreude that he was carefully affecting. He paused just slightly.

"Almoner North is currently being held captive." He paused again. It was longer this time. Half a heartbeat too long before he continued. "By the Carthians."

Alvise nodded slowly, sagely.

"I see. Reeve Agrippa. End him."

The gun was in my hand and leveled at Eric's head faster than a mortal human can open their mouth to scream, the ivory handle comfortable in my grip as the hand of a lover. Three seconds. All it takes to remove a head from a body in a spray of bone and Vitae. Ancient or Ancillae…it's all the same.

Except when it isn't.

There's a moment when you hold a gun in your hand. Assuming that you have the strength and the will to squeeze the trigger. The metal and plastic and gunpowder become not inanimate things but an extension of your arm and your hand and everything fades into the background except for the hunted before you and the pinprick white of the revolver sites.

And it's in that moment of stillness that you pull the trigger. Or you make the stupid mistake of looking your target in the eyes.

_When the door opened, the room was in darkness. All save for the flicker of gold from my lighter as I gave life to the cigarette hanging loosely from her lips and the reflection it made on the dull metal of my guns. Clarke paused in the shadows at the sudden flare of light. I couldn't see his face, but I was relatively certain he looked very worried indeed._

_Good._

_After he had murdered the Judex at the trial that he would never understand nearly cost me everything just to get him, he had slunk off into the shadows like a rat running home to the sewers. I had been chasing him for near on a week, sniffing through the ugly underworld of Baltimore's gun trade until someone had finally pointed me to the heavy cargo ship that was just at that moment sliding out of the harbor. _

_I smiled from where I was sprawled, lounging with affected nonchalance on the bed bolted to the floor of the yacht. I could smell that he was still wounded. Smell the fear on him. In the doorway still, he cleared his throat, a nervous sound that blended with the rush of the little waves outside the porthole window. _

"_Well. Well, hello, Agrippa, didn't… expect you here."_

_I tilted my head just slightly, blowing smoke softly toward the ceiling. "That much is obvious."_

_Clark released a breath that he didn't need to take, quiet for a moment. _

_"So I suppose Regal has sent you to kill me then?" One hand slid beneath his jacket, resting on the grips of something hidden within the shadow of the material. _

"_Or is this just polite conversation tonight?" _

_The burn of the tobacco was sweet in my mouth, and I took a moment to savor it before I answered him. "Every Kindred in Baltimore wants you dead. After what you did, I would think you'd appreciate that I would be at the top of the list. What makes you think I need Regal's orders to come after you?" I turned my eyes to him slowly, and whatever it was I held within them, it made Clark take a step back as I whispered, "Because I don't. Eric. I really, truly don't."_

_Despite my words, though, I hadn't gone out on that boat with the intention of killing Advocate Clark. As satisfying as it would have been, it wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't what was best for the city and my Prince…though I'm sure Alvise would have had other ideas about that particular point. And maybe at one point, I would have felt the same way. I don't know. It's very… _

_Anyway._

_For whatever reason, rather than filling Clark's brain full of bullets, we sat and we talked. He had valuable contacts to offer me. Contacts I needed to help me clean up the mess he had made all over my city. And I needed him alive to get them. And I needed…_

_We talked. And as the sun had begun to color the horizon a paler shade of slate, we had cobbled together something resembling a plan._

_"Do you think He'll take the offer?"._

_I lifted a shoulder as if that part was hardly my problem. _

_"He will if he has any concept of priority."_

_For a long moment, Clark was silent before he let out a soft breath_

_"Then… hopefully this will work." He stood slowly, dusting off his jacket as he looked to me again. "I'll see about getting Saul and Jean when I return to Baltimore, after my wounds are healed. As for the Carthians, I'll get in contact with Hugo and start working things out"._

_A brief nod was all I gave him when I stood. _

_"I would suggest contacting me first when you get back to the city."_

"_Of course," he replied absently. He paused then, studying me for a moment before he spoke again. "I just have one question for you Agrippa, if you would."_

_I turned to face him again and merely raised a brow, waiting._

_He was quiet for a moment longer, taking his time before he looked back up at me._

_"Why did you spare me a second time? After what I've done, why another chance at redemption?"._

_For a long moment, I was silent; I merely stood still as a statue, watching my cigarette burn before grinding it out against the end tablet. It was a good question. A very good question. And it only had one answer._

_"Because I'm an idiot."_

_This earned me a raised brow that I couldn't quite blame him for._

_"Pardon?"_

_I remained still a moment longer, then looked back at him without expression. _

_"Because I am an idiot," I said softly. "And because every single one of us will kill and lie and steal if it means another night of the Requiem. Everyone except me and maybe Lenny. But Lenny's gone. I haven't seen him in weeks and for all I know his ashes are floating in a gutter somewhere. So that leaves just me left who has some concept of something beyond survival. Something more important to me than whether I live to see another sunset." For a long moment, I stared listlessly out the window, watching the city lights appear to bob and pitch against the background of the stars. "I don't think you deserve the Blood Hunt that was called down on your head. I think Regal is a good man, but too much a slave to his passions to be a good Steward. So I'll stand up for you. And I'll pay for it when Alvise returns."_

_Clark blinked, looking away from me with his brows furrowed pensively. His lips moved slowly, muttering words beyond my hearing before he turned back to me again, saying softly and almost reluctantly, "When he returns, I'll stand in your place for the punishment. It's the least I can do to repay you."._

_Slowly I raised a brow. I laughed at him, though the sound wasn't exactly unkind._

_"It doesn't work that way, Eric," I said softly. _

_He shook his head, stubborn now. _

_"I owe you a debt Agrippa, one I intend to repay in any way I can. Alvise listened to reason before, and unless you would rather take the punishment, I'm certain he wouldn't have an issue getting some fun out of punishing me. At least, from what I know of him."_

_I must have looked almost amused when I shook my head. "You are welcome to bring the idea up to him," I said as I shrugged. "But I doubt he'd care. When the dog is bad, you beat it. Otherwise it doesn't learn."_

_There was a stubborn tilt to his chin as he faced me. At that moment, I didn't find it hard to believe at all that he had a bit of an invincibility delusion. _

_"Alright then," he said. "I'll talk to him about it, we'll see what happens. However, it seems that daylight is coming early, do you have a place to stay?"._

_That amused smile tugged at my mouth again as I replied, "I can always find one."_

_He nodded, moving as he did to lock the heavy shutters over the single cabin window._

_"Is there anything else you need to discuss with me? Or might I offer you my cabin for the day? And don't worry, there are two beds if that's an issue."_

_The look I gave him at this was very nearly priceless. _

_"And…I'm to trust you won't put a bullet in my skull?"_

_He blinked again, surprised. Idiot._

_"Why would I seek to harm you when you're my only ticket for survival, and especially why would I harm you when you're the only one who stood up for me?"_

_I paused, and for once, I didn't even bother to fight the incredulity that crept over my face. There was no way in the seven layers of hell that he was going to try and pretend that this hadn't happened._

_"Eric. You __**shot**__ me. With FIRE."_

_He blinked. "Wait, when?"_

_Or maybe he was…_

_He shook his head firmly, holding out his hands._

_"I've never aimed __fire__ at you. Hell, the one bullet I__ did__ shoot at you was directed at your pistol."_

_I felt one of my brows raise very slowly. If looks could kill, Clark would have left the room in an ash tray._

_"When? Oh, I don't know…" I purred softly. "Probably when you hosed down the room I was standing in with double barreled shotguns containing phosphorus rounds. Do you think THAT could have been the time you shot at me, Clark. DO YOU??"_

_He paused for a fraction of a second, and then a sinking flash of mingled surprise and horror shone in his eyes before he folded his face into his hands_

_"I wasn't trying to hit __**you**__! I couldn't see you, there was too much smoke, and-- I was trying to make sure I got Maureen"._

_Very subtly, I twitched. At that moment, it took every fiber of willpower in my being not to tear him apart with my bare hands. Instead, I merely spoke softly._

_"You do know that I'm Mehket, right? You are aware of what fire does to us?"._

_Lightly, he cleared his throat._

_"I'm aware"._

_As I narrowed my eyes, I leaned up close to him and held my fingers a half inch apart. My breath was cool against his cheek, laden with the wrath I didn't yet put action to._

_"I was this close to ash, you bastard."_

_He shook his head, his words overlapping mine._

_"And I want you to know I....."._

_As what I said sank in he paused, clearing his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. The near constant bravado temporarily gone._

_"I've never meant to hit you with any bullet or shell nor sword, you're, well…"_

_I grit my teeth as I felt my temper flaring again. Of all the gall. Of all the arrogant two-faced jackass…_

_"I'm what?"_

_There was silence, and then he said softly, "Perhaps the only other I feel I can trust."_

_For a long moment I glared at him. And then in spite of myself and my rage and my best intentions, I sighed, sinking down to sit on the edge of one of the beds with my face in my hands. _

_"I hate you so much sometimes…"_

Any other time when I stared into the dark brown of Eric Clark's eyes and didn't squeeze the trigger, I would have put it off to the asshole simply Dominating me. Like he did at every single opportunity given to him if were standing on opposite sides of a fight. Or if he thought it would save his ass. Or if he thought it would be funny. But this time…

No. It wasn't that most irritating of vampiric disciplines that made me stay my hand this time. It was something in his eyes… That same thing that had stopped me again and again in the past from just rubbing him off the face of the earth. That same thing that made me call him 'brother'. Whatever it was I hated it. Whatever it was, it made my hand hesitate as he said, "Wait!"

His hands were splayed out, a faint crimson sheen of sweat just touching his brow. It was my eyes he met first before he looked to Alvise, saying more calmly but with no less desperation in his voice.

"Wait…"

Alvise pursed his lips, watching Clark's eyes and warring with himself a moment before he lifted one hand and waved me off. My sigh of relief was hopefully inaudible as I lowered the heavy Smith and Wesson.

Clark looked between us, his eyes flashing back and forth like a cornered rat, his hands still held partially spread.

"If _I _were the Carthian behind all this, do you think I would come runnin' to tell you about it? Jesus, Al-…Prince Moncinegro. I know you might find it hard to believe, but I'm really not that dumb."

Alvise frowned slowly, his eyes narrowed to feline slits as he watched Clark.

"Then what…" he murmured softly, and the soft purr in his voice was that of a tiger in the shadows. "Exactly is it that you think you have to offer me, Mister Clark?"

Clark looked down and shrugged his shoulders, shifting on his feet like a schoolboy brought to face the principal. It was a long moment before he lifted his head, and with a mix of shame and deep, burning anger in his eyes, he said only two words.

"Nicholas Jackson."

Clark had lit a cigarette, and the ghost grey plumes of smoke played about his calloused hands as he told his story.

"I admit it was a stupid idea. But you oughta be used to stupid ideas from my direction by now. And maybe I can appeal to the Invictus' sense of tradition, yeah? I join the Movement to make a difference in this cold, dead world and at first I think we can. But these last few years… It's a disgrace. A travesty. The Carthians in this city used to stand for somethin', but now it isn't anythin' more than a bunch of tit-suckin' neonates lookin' for an excuse to thumb their noses at their Sires. And so when Hugo brought Nicholas Jackson to me sayin' they were gonna change all that…I listened."

He sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his eyes. I heard a low growl leave Alvise's throat, but he stilled when I touched his arm as light as a shadow and whispered, "Wait."

"He said he came from Chicago. That the Carthians there had managed to overthrow the First Estate and it was all because of this man. This Nicholas Jackson…and that now he was here to help us too." He licked his lips dryly, flashing his eyes briefly to mine before he continued.

"I know it's puttin' my life on the line even to tell you this, but he's gotta be stopped. You gotta give me that at least. That I'm tellin' you at all…" He shook his head and a faint light touched his eyes again, and I thought I saw the beginnings of that flickering anger burning in the dark brown. "It was all well and good." He paused just faintly. "And then they brought in Dr. North. And Jackson said we'd be takin' back the city…one Kin at a time. And now that she's on our side…there's no one can stop us."

The room went even more still than it previously had been. We had all heard the rumors of course. Belinda North was a vampire like few others. One who brought through her blood the power to heal rather than to harm. Such a thing is not altogether unheard of…though exceedingly rare. But the whispers about Dr. North went deeper. That she was as old as the very stone of the hills. That her blood was so potent that not only could she knit together undead flesh from the ruin that bullet or fire or blade would make of it…but she could also bring a Kindred back from utter destruction. Force the breath of Requiem back into cold ash and make a vampire lost to destruction whole again.

It was ludicrous.

It blasphemy.

And I was one of only three Kin in the whole of the world that knew it was absolutely true.

Or so I had thought. I blinked slowly as the full weight of what Clark was saying slowly sunk in. Now it seemed that one or other of the shit sucking Carthians had found out as well, and they intended to use the good Doctor as the weapon those of us who knew her had always told her she could be. If the Carthians had captured Dr. North and indeed knew what she was capable of… My mind flashed back to the uprisings that had continued to surge up from the muck of this city's Kindred malcontents over the past decade. Baker, the bloodthirsty guerilla fighter and Macgreggor the mad Scot and Isley the slinking weasel and the nameless fighters robed all in black that it had taken me close to a year and my own precarious "life" to hunt down and destroy. If they all should be brought back. If they all should be united under one banner…

"Oh god…"

It took me a moment to realize the whisper had come from my own lips, and I was quickly stilled by an acidic look from my Prince. Alvise turned his cool green eyes to Clark and appraised him for a long moment before he spoke.

"An interesting story, Master Clark. Very pretty. But suppose an enterprising vampire…say you, yourself, Master Clark…stumbled upon this idea and suddenly found himself in need of a scapegoat when things for one reason or another began to unravel. I would say that if I were in your position, an out of town member of the much despised Carthians would be an ideal person to pin your own indiscretions on. What would you say, Master Clark?"

Clark just slowly shrugged, saying simply and plainly, "I'm not that smart."

Alvise was perfectly still for a long moment, and then suddenly he laughed. It was rich and warm and so utterly a lie that it sent deep cold down the center of my spine. He stepped forward and clapped Clark on the shoulder, and I could not have been the only one who saw the perfectly manicured fingernails dig deeply into Eric's shoulder.

"A perfectly adroit way of putting it, Master Clark."

He leaned forward then, the perfect porcelain of his lips almost brushing Clark's ears. "You will bring this…Nicholas Jackson to me. I much desire to speak with him. Pray, Master Clark, that his tongue is no more silver than yours."


	5. Times Are Gone For Honest Men

_Author's Note: Hey, all. This one's been a long time in coming but it's finally here. And it's a long one, so hopefully you get a little something in return for your patience. Anyhow, I thought a little explanation might be advisable before we get much further into this story. Some of the main characters belong to Bloodlines or organizations or what have you that grant strange powers not found or described in the core __Vampire: the Requiem__ rulebook, and I wanted to give a brief explanation of some of them so I can prevent people from being confused without getting too exposition heavy and in case any other STs out there are interested in using them for their own games._

_That being said, here's a brief rundown. Diana is Clan Mekhet of the Khaibet bloodline. The Khaibet and their shadow-manipulation power Obtenebration can be found in __Bloodlines: the Hidden__. Culter Mythras and its strange practices can be found in __Mythologies__. Lenny's powers of mental manipulation can be found under Dementation in the __Ventrue Clanbook__, and his "mirror magic" can be found in __Mythologie__s, under Ars Speculorum. Dr. North's Bloodline and its sixth level power of reanimating an ashed Kindred were drawn up by the player following the guidelines for creating a new Bloodline. I can offer specifics of the progression if anyone's interested. The boring stuff aside, sorry this took so long. Hope you enjoy. Peace._

_~EC_

Clark was stiff and distant as he left the audience chamber, and my attention was on him and the thousand stupid things I could envision him doing in retaliation to all of this. I was watching the hunched shoulders of his retreating form so closely that I didn't notice Seneschal Regal sidle up beside me until he firmly took my arm and drew me aside. I felt my features stiffen further as I realized who it was that had broken my train of thought, and reflexively pulled my arm back.

I had no care for Seneschal Regal.

No. That's not putting it correctly. And here, if nowhere else, I should be honest.

I hated Seneschal Regal.

He was an impressively built man, strong in the brow and jaw and in the piercing gaze of veiled blue eyes; at least a solid six foot and three inches and as broad in the shoulders as a professional fighter. Looking at Seneschal William Regal, you'd think he'd stepped straight out of the pages of a novel about axe wielding barbarians if it weren't for his neatly trimmed crew cut and impeccable three piece silk suit. He was also, however, an insufferable, stuffy jackass who, for all his indomitable build had all the warrior spirit that God gave a wet cabbage.

He looked a bit like a bulldog to be honest; an impression that was further given weight by the odd habit he had of lowering his heavy brows and thrusting his chin out just slightly when he spoke, as if he were trying to scent for fear on you. His pale blue eyes were flickering, touched with a strange mix of subtle triumph and frustrated anger.

"I saw that, Reeve," he whispered, soft and dangerous as he loomed over me. His breath stank. Idly I wondered who exactly he had been eating. "You may have slunk beneath the notice of our dear Prince, but I'm not so easily distracted."

He was pressing close to me, caging me between the wall and his broad chest like I was an ill behaved dog and he my keeper. I felt my teeth start grinding together, but I tried to keep my words civilized as was befitting the station of a superior.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Seneschal."

"The _fuck_ you don't, Madame Reeve." The lilt of an English accent that touched the words thickened sharply as he swore. He lifted one broad hand like lightening, catching me by the jaw and squeezing until I felt the bone ache in protest. "You had your orders. I was standing right in front of Him when He spoke them to you, and I know you're not deaf, you little beast. Eric Clark—"

"Is _not_ your concern, _Master_ Seneschal." His forearm was thick but the blood within him was weaker than his pontification would tell, and I caught him by the wrist in the sudden rage that that flared up within me and twisted until there was a soft, warning _crack_. He gave a soft grunt that mingled agony and fury, glaring up at me with steel shining in his eyes. I didn't back down though, forcing him back against the wall where he had held me pinned.

"And the next time you think to lay a hand on the property of your Master, I will _take_ that hand from you." I punctuated the softly hissed words with a twist of the arm I held, and then let him roughly go. For a moment the two of us merely glared at each other, two feral dogs facing each other over a scrap of bone. Only slowly did he straighten and run his pale, heavy hands meticulously down over his now rumpled suit. His voice was thin and hard as a blade across slate as he spoke with calm, clipped precision.

"You're soft, Reeve. That Carthian bastard's brains should be all over the carpet. Should have been so the second Prince Moncinegro told you to fire. I don't know what a man who's tried to kill you more times than I have fingers has done to so tickled your girlish fancy, but if you don't put a stop to it…I'll find a way to."

I gave him no satisfaction of a reply save to look him straight in the eye as I spat directly in his shadow and pushed roughly past.

"Do your duty, lapdog," I heard his whisper follow me down the hall. "Or I'll see you put down."

I road shotgun with Clark on the way to his haven. He drove a station wagon with wooden paneling that struck me as really more fitting for Mr. and Mrs. Brady to be tooling around in than a hardened killer. Though as I let my mind idly wander back over the long list of other vehicles that I had seen Clark own…and consequently lose through either axe wielding maniacs, vengeful pyrokinetics, hails of gunfire or acts of god…it started to make a little more sense.

I thought about starting a conversation a time or two as we eased through the press of downtown traffic, but every time I looked over at him, his dark eyes were locked in a thousand mile death stare with the road, his lips pressed in a tight, angry line. So I amused myself with counting the speed loaders I had strapped to the bandoleer around my waist, and was consequently startled when he actually spoke up himself.

"Why'd you do it?"

He wasn't looking at me, but there was a soft intensity in his voice that drew my attention. I blinked.

"Do what?"

He gave a low snort. "Don't yank me around, Diana. I've seen you take enough heads off with those hand cannons to know what you're capable of. You had every reason. So why'd you do it? Why'd you let me live?"

I merely grunted in response, spinning the cylinder of the gun in my hand. "Calling me 'Diana' is a little more forward than I think I should forgive…Eric. But in any case, I figured you and your precious clan's favorite discipline would know full well the answer to that."

He did look over at me know, his brown eyes tinted black in the darkness of the car. "Bullshit," he said sharply. "I didn't Dominate you. Didn't even think about it." He paused just a moment and then had the decency to look a little embarrassed as he looked back at the road.

"Well. Maybe I thought about it a little. The point is I didn't and you still didn't scatter my brainpan all over the wall. Don't bullshit me, Diana. I know you. So why?"

I stared at him a long moment, his dark eyes as black and as unreadable as the bottom of a well, and my mind ran with a thousand things I wanted to tell him about brotherhood and standing by someone who had stood by you a hundred times in battle, no matter if they're right or wrong or just simply a complete idiot.

In the end, though, all I said was, "You're going to hit that semi."

Clark cursed and clutched the wheel, veering off to the right in the nick of time. And he said no more about it until we pulled with the crunch of gravel beneath decrepit wheels in front of the spanning brick house that served as the Carthian base of operations. Archon Blackwell and Archon Romanov slid up beside us in Blackwell's spotless BMW. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sing Sing park across the street in the heavy pickup truck he'd borrow from his repugnant Ghoul Piggy when he needed a lift somewhere and I pursed my lips slightly in annoyance. If Alvise wanted to 'talk' to this Nicholas Jackson, then he wanted him alive. And honestly, 'alive' is not a qualifier you should attach to someone you choose to send Sing Sing Tommy Shay after. Unfortunately, he had heard of our little 'sting' and was already there, and I didn't have the time or the patience to try and get him to fuck off, so I just looked to Clark with a heavy sigh and prayed for the best.

"So how are we doing this?"

Clark reached into his jacket and drew out a crumpled Lucky Strike. He set the cigarette to his mouth and lit it carefully before he answered me.

"Well. I figured I'd go in there, right? And then I'd say, 'Hey. You should come out and see the Prince.'"

I stared at him for a long moment, trying to discern whether or not he was kidding. His expression was so honest and open, though, that I had to come to the regretful conclusion that he was being completely serious. He must have seen something in my expression because he shrugged his thin shoulders and started to get out of the car, speaking under his breath to me.

"Well…why not? If he says no, we go in there and drag him out and break a whole bunch of my nice things in the ensuing fight like I know you'd just love to do. If he says yes then we get all this settled without you wasting any bullets. Win-win for you, yeah?"

I frowned slowly as I tucked the .500 I had been toying with back securely into its holster. Before I could reply, though, I saw a flash of shadow slide of its own volition almost idly past Clark along the ground of the parking lot. It stopped just outside of Clark's half-open door and then peeled itself off of the ground and 'stood' upright. It was only after squinting into the darkness that I recognized Ilyana's form, locked into the shadow realm that we both called home. The shade that was Ilyana tossed me a mocking salute and then melted back onto the ground again to race off into the neighboring darkness. I sighed heavily and worked to unclench my jaw as I pushed my own way out of the car.

"Alright," I murmured. "You can go in. But at the first sign of trouble I'm blowing somebody's head off. So try and make sure it isn't yours."

He only snorted in reply and started off toward the house. I watched after him for a moment or two with a soft frown, then shook my head and let my own form meld into the shadows around me. I slid rapidly across the ground in the wake of the erstwhile Advocate, pulling his shadow around my own shaded form and settling in for what I hoped wasn't too long a wait.

Clark made his way up the steps of his haven and was reaching for the pale silver box bolted to the wall next to the door when there was a sudden rustling in the bushes behind him. I tensed myself as I saw Clark spin around, lifting the twin .45s he carried into action quicker than a man can realize that sneaking up on a vampire is a bad idea. Then I saw him blink and lower the pistols slowly with a sound of thinly veiled disgust.

"What the hell are you doing here, asshole?"

Subtlety is not one of Advocate Clark's strong points.

Keeper Rhodes stepped out of the hedges with a soft, disapproving click of his tongue as he brushed his thin hands over the brocade of his velvet vest.

"Master Clark, I'm _surprised_ at you. Why else would I be here other than to offer you what paltry assistance I can in your time of deepest need? I mean…" he laughed and plucked a wayward twig off of his shoulder and flicked it off to one side. "If _I_ had been played for a patsy by the very people I'd spent so much time and money trying to beat into respectability, why, _I'd_ want a little friendly backup."

Clark bared his teeth and shoving a hand into Keeper Rhode's chest, thrusting him back against the brick wall behind him.

"I swear to holy Christ, Rhodes…if you fuck this up for me…"

I never got to hear exactly what Clark was planning on doing to Keeper Rhodes, because it's at that moment that the door slid open and a man I didn't recognize stepped out into the flat glare of the fluorescent porch light.

He was an older man to all appearances, dressed in a classy '40s zoot suit of unnatural white. A high forehead complete with widow's peak of wispy salt and pepper hair was shaded by a gleaming white fedora. He had heavy black brows that swept up across his forehead at sharp angles and leant something of the mocking Harlequinn to his sharp, hungry smile as he swept his hat off and pressed it over his heart.

"Why, Advocate Clark…here I'd thought you'd left us for the evening."

There was an odd cadence to the way he spoke… He attacked the beginning of each sentence sharply before letting the end trail away in a menacing sort of purr. It seemed almost familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. Something about a hotel…

My attention was drawn back as Clark slowly released his hand from around Keeper Rhodes' throat and turned to face Jackson.

"We gotta talk."

Jackson laughed and put his fedora back on, pressing the brim down to give it a rakish tilt.

"Well, I kind of figured that, Sparky. Figured it the second you snuck off tonight." He smiled that Harlequinn smile and turned his gaze to Keeper Rhodes. "I'm sorry he brought you all the way out here, Master Rhodes. Advacate Clark here doesn't seem to have the decorum necessary to properly address persons of your station…or consider what pains and problems just shouldn't be placed upon already heavy shoulders."

Rhodes puffed up almost imperceptibly and gave that oily smile of his. He half bowed his head and shot a sidelong glance at Clark. Clark snorted softly and glared up at the elder man.

"That spitshine talk ain't gonna work on Alvise, Jackson. The cat's outta the bag and you've gotta come clean about this whole can of worms."

I saw Jackson raise an angular brow as a cold smirk touched his china blue eyes.

"Come clean? Come clean about a…course of action that you, yourself not only supported but in part masterminded?"

Clark jerked where he stood, and something unreadable flashed through his dark eyes before he growled and Jackson smiled.

"Yes…" Jackson said slowly, drawing the last 's' out in a hiss as his eyes locked on those of the Advocate. "Yes, I think there are quite a few things that Prince Moncinegro and I need to…discuss."

It suddenly seemed to me that Clark looked far more nervous at these simple words than I was entirely comfortable with. However, the gunshot that chose that moment to split the night with thunder brought my attention, for the moment, far away from such a paltry consideration.

It all happened so fast that I didn't even have the time to release the shadows and snap back into my natural form before it was over. Clark stood with his mouth hanging open like a gutted fish. Jackson's very fine hat was knocked askew and the vampire himself was in a very undignified heap, pushing himself up off of his backside with an irritated grimace. He looked highly annoyed, but to my surprise, unhurt. An oddity that was explained as Keeper Rhodes pushed himself, coughing and sputtering, back to his feet. He tried to speak, but there was a smoking, jagged hole in his neck the size of a softball and all that he could get out was the horrible gurgling, whistling sound of air rushing through ruined flesh.

I saw him stagger and catch himself against the porch railing, dark ichor seeping down the front of his pristine white poet's shirt as he clutched with one hand at the railing and pointed shakily with the other hand somewhere past Clark's left shoulder.

Clark blinked at him in a bemused manner, stepping back to avoid blood spatter on his shoes.

"Who the hell would try and kill _you_?"

Rhodes sucked in a gurgling breath as he straightened to face Clark. His voice was ragged as he strained blood into the gaping wound to force it closed again.

"Not me, you plebian _moron_," he gasped, spitting dark blood with every word. Rhodes twisted his head sharply to one side, snapping bone back into place. "_HIM!"_ He jerked his thumb in the direction of Jackson, who was only now pushing himself shakily to his feet.

He chose a bad moment to do so, as another rifle round clipped the fedora off of his head with a deafening crack. Clark spun around; a look on his face that would have been almost comical if the situation had been a little less life-threatening.

"Who the _fuck_ is shooting—" He jerked back as another echoing gunshot was followed by a spray of gore as Clark's left shoulder exploded. A strangled sound of agony was forced past his clenched teeth as he went down hard and then scrambled backward to press his back against the short brick wall that circled the elaborate porch. His left arm hung useless at his side, twisted at the shoulder in a bloody mess of gristle and bone that jutted through torn skin, and his right hand shook as he fumbled for one of the .45s that were tucked hidden within his suit coat. He braced himself against the wall and pushed up against it to half peer over the railing into the darkness beyond.

I hesitated in my shadows, not quite yet willing to reveal myself. It's true that it's best to have an idea of who's trying to blow your head off before you face them…but I'll admit there was also a part of me that wouldn't have minded if this mystery gunman left all three of these assholes in ashes. The first question, at least, was answered as I saw Clark stiffen suddenly and straighten fully.

"Shay! Shay, you shit-suckin' ass clown!! What the flying _fuck_ are you doing?"

There was the soft clink from across the bigger brick wall surrounding the compound, like the sound of brass casings being carelessly kicked aside as a marksman shifts position before a gruff, reedy voice was lifted in the darkness.

"Takin' the Carthian prisoner. Now shove over, Advocate Mary. I got work to do."

The faint lift of one brow was the only expression that crossed Jackson's face, and it was one of pure amusement. Clark, however, was the very caricature of barely caged fury, his teeth locked together and his dark eyes flashing. I heard a sickening snap and the second .45 was suddenly clenched in his pale, shaking hand, the ruined muscle and tendon of his injured arm torn further as he struggled to lift the weight of the heavy pistols.

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" Clark risked pushing himself partially above the barrier again, calling angrily across the dark parking lot that separated them. "You know how this was supposed to go! We're bringing him to the Prince alive, god dammit, _alive_!"

Sing Sing laughed callously, and I heard him spit derisively to the side. "And what d'you thinks gonna happen when we get him there, huh? Unless you fed us a whole basket of bullshit, I get the feeling the good Prince isn't gonna just give him a slap on the wrist. Nah. He's gonna tear him seven new assholes and then fuck all of 'em. Unless you're _lyin'_ to us, Advocate Shitheel. You wouldn't lie to us, would ya? So we might as well save him the trouble and save us the pain of haulin' a squirmin' body in."

Clark blinked, and I saw his jaw tighten as he pushed himself fully upright to face the Archon crouched in the shadows.

"We had a deal, Shay! He's coming quietly, so put down the goddamn gun!"

There was a pause. One I calculated as roughly the amount of time needed to take a long draw off a cheap cigar.

"Fuck your deal," Sing-Sing called idly, and then chose to underline that point by laying down another round from his BAR.

Clark ducked beneath the wall again, lifting an arm over his face to guard against the spray of shattered brick as bullets tore heavy craters into the side of the house. I glanced around and noticed that Keeper Rhodes had taken the opportunity to slip off in the confusion and sighed inwardly. I didn't have time for this and I didn't have time for the exercise in futility that would be trying to talk Sing Sing out of whatever idiot idea had worked its way into his thick skull.

_"Take care of this," _I whispered to Clark, hoping the cacophony of gunfire was enough to cover my hissed words, and slipped off, hugging the ground, toward the back of the house.

Clark's Haven was enormous, and by the time I reached the back door the echo of gunfire was only audible and no longer unbearable. It was, however, certainly enough to garner the attention of the local authorities, so I wasted no more time in slipping beneath the door and into the back entryway of the manor house.

I knew Clark's Haven also served as Haven for a good handful of the city's Carthian neonates, as well as many of what served as the "head" of the movement. So as I moved slowly from room to room, blending with the flickering shadows that undulated across the floor like silent waves, I was surprised to find each of them empty. There were signs of occupation: half finished meals left on the counter by careless ghouls and an unfinished game of Texas Hold'Em spread across the kitchen table…but no single body was in evidence.

Until I came to the living room.

The scene was lit by the flickering glow of a video game left unattended on the television screen. Flashing shadows from the inhuman illumination bathed light in disco flash patterns across bodies sprawled in pools of black; their throats torn open, their mouths locked in silent screams. Here and there, interspersed among the twisted corpses where piles of ash and fragmented bone, the dust of their fall still hanging lazily in the air.

Most of them were dead before they'd even hit the ground. It was clinical and complete and beautiful in its perfect brutality. I felt the Beast within me shiver in appreciation. Until I found out the source of that brilliant, breathtaking carnage.

Ilyana Romanov stood in a hallway some twenty feet off the living room, standing with an indolent tilt to her hips as she polished blood from one sleek K-Bar, as if she was entirely aware of how perfectly the unearthly blue light of the scene reflected off of the skin tight leather pants that lovingly clung to her long legs. I felt the skin that I didn't currently have crawl in nameless anger at the simple sight of her, and as I forced myself back into human form, I was already frowning.

"Well?"

She lifted her cat green eyes to me slowly, and I noticed that she'd apparently found the time to outline her smoky eyes in black khol before her little killing spree.

Bitch.

"They were holding Almoner North in this room, Reeve. Archon Blackwell and Keeper Rhodes have taken her into protective custody." She turned the Cupid's bow of her mouth upward just slightly and I felt something inside me clench a little tighter.

"And this…mess?"

"Carthian scum. Nothing more."

I spat to one side. "This was _not _a part of the plan, Romanov. The First Estate has enough to deal with right now without worrying about retaliatory actions from Advocate Clark."

Ilyana gave a haughty sniff. A bit like a cat with something caught in its throat.

"These were enemies of the First Estate, Agrippa. I would think that you would be perhaps more happy that I have done something that will so please Alvise."

I felt my teeth bare themselves just slightly despite my best intentions.

"_Prince_ Moncinegro's desires are not for _you_ to interpret."

She laughed. It was a silky, silver sound just as beautiful as her face, and her dark eyes flashed with the malice of it.

"One of us has to, Reeve Agrippa. It seems you have perhaps grown poor at the practice."

I stared at her a long moment, but any reply I may have had was cut off by the sudden sharp sound of gunfire coming once more from the front of the house. In the end, I merely said sharply, "Return to Brookhaven. We'll discuss you're insubordination at a later date," and melted back into the shadows.

By the time I slid beneath the front door and back onto the porch, all had gone quiet again. There were heavy shadows moving in the fitful light at the far edge of the parking lot, and as I moved closer, I made out Clark's stooped form shoving something bulky and awkward and strangely familiar into the back of his car. A closer look revealed Sing Sing Tommy's torpored body, half of his skull neatly blown off, and a self satisfied sort of smile on Clark's face. He glanced down at me as I flickered at his feet and said simply, "I took care of it," before he shut the back of the car and moved to the driver's seat.

Jackson was still and silent on the trip back to Brookhaven, but I took no chances and remained in the ethereal form I had taken on, hidden firmly within the old Carthian's shadow. When we walked through the grand double doors to Alvise's private audience chambers, Archons Blackwell and Romanov were already there, along with a newly healed and less than pleased Keeper Rhodes.

Alvise was waiting as well, seated in the heavy black chair that dominated the room with Regal standing to his side and behind him, like an oversized lurking vulture.

"Ah. Master Clark. So good of you to join us. And this must be…"

"Nicholas Jackson." The Carthian stepped forward as he completed the introduction, sweeping his elegant fedora off and pressing it to his chest as he bowed.

"Such an honor to make your acquaintance at last, Prince Moncinegro. I know I may have been a bit lax in introductions, but I hope when all comes to light you'll forgive me the little lapse in manners."

Alvise chuckled low in his throat, a bit like a big cat considering a choice meal spread before it.

"When all comes to light, Master Jackson, you had best hope that the most pressing of your worries is a misstep in protocol. Madame North?"

Ilyana stepped forward, her hands folded respectfully behind her back.

"She has been safely returned and given chambers in Brookhaven, Sire. She wished to rest and recuperate before she spoke to you."

Alvise made a low sound in the back of his throat. "Well done, dear Ilyana. I will allow her time to make herself presentable. But I fear we haven't the time to give the good doctor an extended vacation. Her words may prove invaluable in Master Clark's ensuing trial."

"Trial!?" Clark's sharp voice bled incredulity as he stepped forward. "With all due respect, _sir,_ I wasn't aware I was the one on trial here." He pointed a slightly shaking figure at the nonchalant form of Jackson. "This is the jackass who kidnapped Dr. North. This is the jackass who has the Carthians close to riot again. _This _is the jackass on trial!"

Alvise stood slowly, and Clark's words faded into a whimper in his throat. The Prince's voice was soft and gentle, but the menace in it was unmistakable as he strode slowly forward to face Clark.

"If you think, Master Clark, that this...apparent turning of a new leaf on your part makes me any more inclined to forgive your past transgressions, you are sadly mistaken. If anything, sirrah, it makes me all the more suspicious of your motivations. I always knew you were a turncoat and a coward. Now I have to get to the bottom of the latest reason you're tucking your tail between your legs and changing sides. And find out whether it's the truth you've told me, or just yet another elaborate and ill-advised plan on your part to bring the First Estate down 'round my ears."

Clark's mouth was hanging open so wide, you could have driven a truck into it. His eyes glittered angrily, and he drew breath to retort but Alvise simply cut him off again.

"Now then… Archon Romanov. Madame North's return and the arrest of these…usurpers is work well done. You have served me well this evening. Doubly so as it seems Diana seems intent on proving her continued uselessness. Await me in my chambers, please." The girl bowed her head and slipped silently away and Alvise watched her appreciatively for a moment before he turned back to the assembly.

"And where…" he purred. "Is my Reeve?"

I hesitated and then released my ethereal form, stepping out of Jackson's shadow to stand before my Prince. I kept my eyes lowered, trying not to lift them and make obvious the anger that burned within.

"I chose to remain hidden, Lord," I murmured. "One knows not the moment a snake will strike, just that it is very likely to do so, and I wished to be sure that the Archons and yourself remained safe."

"Ilyana has told me that it was she who freed the good doctor and eliminated a good portion of the Carthian rats that nested in Master Clark's haven, and you who were only there to clean up the mess, so do not bore me with pretty words, Reeve. If I didn't have some small remaining faith that you can at least properly carry out an execution, I would have little need of you at all in this moment, so be still and _silent_."

I caught the triumphant smirk in Regal's dark gaze and quickly lowered my eyes again, digging my fingernails into my palms until blood pooled beneath them. I gave only a curt nod of my head before retreating to one side of the room, silently trying to put the screaming Beast within me to reign.

Alvise returned to his seat with that easy, predator's grace, leaning languidly back into the dark wood.

"Now then…" he murmured gently. "Master Clark's side of the story we've already heard. That you, Master Jackson, were brought in by the Carthian movement of this city to…shake things up, as it were. And that it was your plan to abuse the…fabled powers of dear Doctor North. I am, I must say…" He leaned forward just slightly, steepling his long, pale fingers together. "Infinitely interested in hearing what you have to say for yourself."

Jackson replaced his fedora with slow, understated grace, lifting china blue eyes to the Prince as just the hint of a smile flitted across his features.

"I'm a Carthian man, your highness," Jackson started quietly. "So maybe you'd call me traitor too. And I know there's definitely a lotta young bloods from my own Movement who might say the same when I tell you what I'm about to tell you. But I gave myself to this movement, Sire. Every bone in this true blue American body is dedicated to that cause, and so I just can't stand back and let some little shit who calls himself Carthian get away with this."

I thought I may have been the only one who saw the unpleasant smile that was hiding in Jackson's eyes. And then I saw that Clark was very slightly starting to shake in barely contained fury. He said nothing, though, and Jackson continued.

"You see, I just found the whole story out myself not more than a day or two ago. Master Clark, here, he seems to have a bit of a problem with the Invictus. And he ain't like me. He ain't the kind of guy who represents…a free flow of ideas between covenants, if you know what I'm saying. Nah, he's all about blood and vinegar. Firefights and last stands and all those other outdated and…highly unnecessary heroics. So he gets an idea in his head to wipe you and your kind off of this city's map. He's been scheming on this for the better part of a year, Sire, and the whole thing hinged on bringing me into things."

Slowly he reached into his jacket and withdrew an elegant silver cigarette case. He withdrew one of the slender cylinders, but did not light it, only rolled it slowly between his calloused fingers as he spoke.

"I get a call from Master Clark a few months ago. Wants me to come in and start stirring shit up. Now, as much as I hate to admit it and you may damn me for it…well, I love my movement, and sometimes a little anarchy is what you need to really get things to change. But then I found out… I found out it was all a sham. A ruse, you know? The things I was doing was all a big cover-up for his _real _plan. Pretend to switch sides and offer me up to you as a fuckin' patsy. So he could catch you with your proverbial pants down once his real plan came into effect."

He set the cigarette slowly between his lips and leaned back slightly, hooking one thumb into the pocket of his suit coat.

"I don't like bein' played for a patsy, Sir. And I ain't takin' the hock for this piece of shit. Not even to see my own Covenant in power."

There was a moment of perfect silence and then Eric Clark exploded.

"You lying _scumbag_! You two-faced stream of horses' shit!"

He spun to face Alvise, pointing a shaking finger at Jackson.

"This motherfucker…this mother_fucker…_" He sputtered to a halt and then took a deep breath, composing himself carefully. "With all due respect, Prince Moncinegro, he is lying through his goddamn teeth. I never sent for the asshole, he just showed up! I--"

He was cut off again as Alvise silently raised one pale, beautiful hand.

"That will be enough, I think, Master Clark." His lips lifted in half of a crooked smile as he rose again, facing the two of them. "I think I've heard enough. The two of you could 'He said she said' back and forth all night…but I have other entertainments to see to." He went thoughtfully quiet for a moment before lifting his hand again, this time to beckon Seneschal Regal near.

"Bring me the Confessor."

Heinrich Reinhardt looked like a Renaissance angel. His hair was golden and fell just past his shoulders, and the inhuman pallor of his face held the perfection of marble rather than the sallow touch of the grave. His eyes were the blue-grey of the sea before a storm, and something in them held such wisdom and such compassion that it softened the stern strength of his visage. He wore a simple black cassock that fell to his knees, somber and austere. Simple clothing that spoke of a man of god who would well look after his flock.

I was one of the few people who knew the whole damn thing was a charade. "Father" Reinhardt was no more a priest than I was the Queen of Portugal, and the calm grey of his eyes hid a constant hunger beyond the thirst for blood that drove us all. The angelic face was mask to a monster who hungered for firm flesh beneath his hands, for sweat slicked hair at the back of the neck and the moaning scream of a woman held merciless and mindless beneath him. He preyed on women. Feasted on their agony and I hated him for it. Hated him for the way he had…

No.

No, that's not important right now.

The important part is that whatever I may have thought of the man personally, he was still our Confessor. Since the fall of the Lancea Sanctum in Baltimore all those years ago, he had been closely allied with the Invictus, using his mastery of the discipline of Majesty to pull admissions of guilt from the most unwilling of lips.

He gave a respectful bow of his head to Alvise, and his cool grey eyes latched for a moment on mine before his mouth turned slowly upward in the echo of a leering smile. He spoke softly, his voice low and sweet as the soft tones of a church organ.

"My Prince requests my presence?"

Alvise gestured between Clark and Jackson, both of whom were currently occupied shooting dirty looks at each other.

"We seem to have a…difference of opinion between these two gentlemen, Advocate Reinhardt. I was hoping you might speak to them and see which of them is lying to me and which is going to survive the night. It's a matter of some import."

Reinhardt bowed his head, his soft voice perfectly deferential.

"Of course, Sire."

For the next two hours, Reinhardt spoke with both Clark and Jackson in turn, the cool blue of his eyes never for a second breaking contact with theirs. They spoke in low tones too soft to be heard, and it was growing dangerously close to dawn before Reinhardt slowly straightened again, cracking the bones in his neck to one side and then another before he turned to face Alvise with a soft sigh and a brief shake of his head.

"Forgive me, Prince. The stories they tell are, as you likely know, at direct contradiction to each other. I fear that for all my ability, there is at least one of them whose willpower I just do not have the power to break."

There was a hush through the room, and Clark chose that moment to be an idiot.

"Well. I guess that means you'll just have to set us both free."

Alvise sighed a soft, longsuffering sigh.

"Master Clark…please shut the gaping hole in your face."

He stood and began pacing the room slowly, the supple, fluid material of his robe flowing behind him like the ripples of water on a small pond.

"If we cannot depend on threats, and we cannot depend on force and we cannot depend on the sweet whispers of Majesty…well then what can we depend on?" He turned his head to quietly appraise the two men before him, the pale green of his eyes cold and shrewd. "Perhaps I should just kill you both and be rid of two headaches with one proverbial stone, hm?"

Even Jackson began to look faintly nervous, and there was almost an audible sigh of relief from the two before Advocate Reinhardt shrugged.

"If Confession has failed then it falls to the forceful removal of information from those under suspicion. Is there none in the court who have mastered the subtle powers of Auspex? Or even, perhaps, outside of the court? Surely in a city of this size there must be _someone_…"

The room went silent again as we all stared wordlessly at each other. Auspex was a craft jealously guarded by the Mekhet, and there were few in the city even of the Clan who had mastered it. And outside the Clan… Outside…

Keeper Rhodes was smiling like a snake when he caught my eye.

"Mercer."

I could have killed him.

Alvise turned to Rhodes, one dark brow partially lifted.

"Come again?"

Rhodes' smile sharpened as he turned a simpering smile on the Prince. "I was only saying that Archon… Oh. Excuse me. _Ex_-Archon Mercer had mastered Auspex. You remember it came in so very useful in the Blackwood affair."

The Prince lifted the other brow to join the first.

"Is that so? Bring him to me."

There was a sudden and prolonged awkward pause before I slowly heard myself speak.

"Archon Mercer…has been banished from the city, my Lord," I whispered. "You forbid him from ever showing his shadow in the streets again…on pain of death."

Alvise looked ever so faintly puzzled for a moment. "Did I?" He mused on this for a moment as he strolled back to his chair. "Ohhh yes. Yes, I did." He waved one languid hand, though his eyes were sharp as he turned them on me.

"Now tell me the part where that matters, Reeve Agrippa. You're soft on the rat. You have been since he stumbled into my city and started fouling the streets with his presence. I cannot fathom why and I don't need to. The important part of all of this is that if anyone can find Mercer, Diana my dear…it's you."

"But-"

He stood slowly and stepped forward, cradling my chin in his deceptively soft touch and silencing my outburst.

"And you will find him, Diana," he whispered. "You'll find him and you'll bring him to me. Or you needn't bother showing your face in my presence again."


	6. The Dreams in Which I'm Dying

_Hello again, cats, Kin and kiddies. Once again, I'm sorry for the late update, but this chapter was a very hard one to get through. All exposition and no dialogue makes EC a dull writer and all that. Anyway, hope it was worth the wait. I promise things will pick up again soon. And, of course, happy belated birthday, Little Justin!_

_Peace._

_~EC_

_ I'm lost in a riptide of shadow and light. There were a hundred candles in the chandelier so far above, and each tiny flame caught in crystal and gold and was reflected and doubled and magnified a thousand thousand times to bathe the world below in a fantasy light. Candlelight makes everything soft and subtle. And even the bloodless Kin become fey creatures in its forgiving warmth; temptresses and incubi sweetened in the golden glow so all you see is the flickers of promises and none of the fangs._

_ They moved around me in waves of crimson silk and tailored velvet: painted faces noble and savage and wicked and sad and their pageantry was as intoxicating as the sweet strains of the string quartet that played as soft as a half remembered dream in one corner of the grand hall. Centuries were outlined in the dance as I watched them, and with perfect grace and perfect steps they move around me, whirling to the music as light and unreachable as leaves on the wind. _

_ I felt ridiculous. Awkward in a way that shouldn't happen to anyone outside of a high school dance as I stood against the wall in a silk dress that only barely adequately covered the derringer strapped to my inner thigh while it clung and revealed and completely outshined the woman within it. From where I stood, I could reach out and touch any one of them as they stepped lightly past. But I don't. And they don't touch me. No one touches me. _

_ Bonded to the Prince in title and in blood, I am the outcast and the untouchable and the unclean. Those beneath me…the neonates and Unbound…I feel their eyes and there's fear in them. Don't speak to her don't look at her don't touch her or you'll find out what Prince Alvise Moncinegro is capable of when he's feeling jealous. And those above me… Well. A killing hand painted up and put in a silk dress is no fit company for the crème of the First Estate. _

_They watch me. Some of them. Even when they're pretending they're not. A glance is cast my way, a whisper just touches the edge of my hearing, a smirk that bares a hint of fangs and more than a trace of amused malice…or disgust that has no care to be covered. They stare. But they keep well away. Good. The last thing I wanted was anyone asking me…_

"_Do you want to dance?"_

_I startled slightly and it took me a minute to realize that the voice wasn't in my head. It was soft and gentle just behind me, and a moment later I realized familiar. A little high and a little musical and touched with Boston's color. I turned slowly, not trying to hide the shock that must have been chasing itself in circles across my face and looked up the considerable distance to Lenny's shy smile._

"…_what?"_

_Lenny shuffled a little uncomfortably from foot to foot, shrugging his thin shoulders. Lenny would never be what you'd call "handsome." He was too tall and too…gangly. The man stood at least six foot four and couldn't have weighed more than one hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet. At least he seemed to have taken the time to shower for once, as his dark hair was clean and held in a tidy pony tail at the nape of his neck. He must have lucked out at the Salvation Army too because he looked…surprisingly good. Well. If you had a fondness for 1975. He smiled again and I found myself liking what it did to the tired lines of his face. I guess '75 was a pretty good year._

"_You know…dance? You put your hand on my shoulder. I put my hand on your waist. We move around to music while I step on your feet and try to avoid getting an awkward boner." _

_I stared at him for a long moment and then I felt something strange start bubbling up deep in my stomach before to my surprise I started laughing. I blinked and threw a hand up quickly over my mouth, but I couldn't stop the shaking of my shoulders. Lenny blinked and looked slightly alarmed._

"_Diana, you're not gonna throw up or something, are you? Cuz I just got these shoes." _

_I tightened my hand over my mouth as the laughter redoubled and I reached up to touch his shoulder lightly so he would hopefully shut up. I took a slow breath and smiled._

"_Well, Archon Mercer. Since it's all but impossible for you to get…hm…'excited' without actively trying to or for me to throw up...I think we'd be okay to dance. If you want." _

_I saw him hesitate for a moment and those strange silver eyes lifted to sweep over the crowd of assembled Kindred, several of which were watching like hawks while seeming fixated on anything but the two of us half hidden in the shadows. He took a short, bracing sort of breath in through his nose and gave me that smile again before he reached out and took my hands in his._

"_Yeah. Yeah, I do."_

_He pulled me out onto the floor and into the music, one thin, bony hand resting on the curve of my waist and the other cradling my fingertips. He tightened his arm just gently, pulling me close but keeping respectful distance well between us as we began to move to the lilting strains of the violins._

_He was terrible. I mean…he was really, really not a good dancer at all. But he was young and it was a waltz and who really learns to waltz these days? So I smiled back and pulled him closer, leading him with light footsteps beneath the twinkling candlelight. And for a moment, I felt myself get lost in the music and the light and the color and the way Lenny's face lit up when he smiled. _

"_Well, would you look at that," a soft, languid voice murmured just within hearing somewhere behind my left shoulder. "A stray dog dancing with a lapdog. What an amusing kennel the Prince keeps."_

_I felt my steps falter just slightly. Suddenly the spell was broken and I was once more just a trained pet in a fancy dress, lost and unwelcome in a world I couldn't blend into. I lowered my eyes and closed off my expression again, keeping my attention on the movement of my feet. So Lenny's soft voice startled me when he tightened his hands on mine and spoke gently once more._

"_Hey…" he whispered. "Hey. Let's get out of here."_

_I blinked a few times; sure I hadn't heard him right and lifted my eyes to him slowly once more._

"_What?"_

"_Let's blow this gin joint," he whispered, lowering his head to mine. "This is pointless douche-baggery. Let's go have some real fun."_

"_But the Gala…"_

"_Fuck the Gala," he interjected. "Let these pricks kiss each others asses. Let's get out of here."_

_He took my hand and spun me around to the echo of the cello's mournful sighing, and suddenly we were off the dance floor and lost within the tangled crowd. I felt his fingers tighten in a vice grip around mine as we slipped and struggled our way through the press of bodies. And as he pulled me along and I stumbled on my four-inch heels and we ran like naughty, truant school children down the silent sidewalk, I found myself once again laughing._

When I awoke with a start, temporarily blind in the darkness of my Haven, the sound of our laughter was still ringing in my ears. I ran a hand slowly over my face, wiping away the lingering vestiges of the dream like cobwebs and pushed myself slowly upright.

It had been three nights since Alvise had issued his ultimatum to me, and I was no closer to finding Lenny now than if I had pinned all my hopes on spotting his lonely hearts ad on Craigslist. He didn't answer my phonecalls, and the Sto-N-Go he called a Haven had contained only a moldering stack of pizza boxes. To my chagrin, I had found myself the night before knocking on the mirror in a ladys' restroom before I realized how ridiculously futile it was. I sighed and lowered my feet to the floor slowly.

It was quiet in the shadows that cradled my home. So much so that the soft sound of a dog growling startled the last haze of daysleep from my clouded mind.

I turned my head, tuning my eyes to pierce the darkness for the source of the noise. Garm was lying across the barred hatch that served as door to my Haven; the Doberman's sleek head lifted and turned to stare with unbroken focus at the wall across from him where the cheap mirror Simon had left me still sat propped against the stone. Frowning softly I murmured his name but received no answer other than another low, dangerous growl.

"Garm?" I said again softly, moving at last to push myself off of the Spartan mattress. As I did, I felt my fingertips brush against something foreign half tangled in the sheets. Pausing faintly I frowned again, reaching within to extract the object in faint trepidation I couldn't entirely explain even as I reached to turn on the lights.

In the glare of the bare, overhead bulb, a fat manila envelope sat in my outspread hands, wrinkled and stained and torn once across the top corner. Scrawled across the front in rust brown letters like child's finger paint was my name.

I lifted my head to survey the room again, feeling the hair prick up unbidden at the back of my neck. Despite whatever unnamed fear was teasing my nerves, though, the spanning room was silent and bare; its only occupants myself and Garm, who now had his head on his paws in lazy dog disinterest. I licked my lips and lowered my eyes once more to the parcel in my hands, and with fingertips shaking just slightly I worked open the clasp and dumped the contents out onto the rumpled sheets.

There was a soft thump as a heavy plastic cassette fell onto the bed, dull white against the blue cotton. I blinked once and searched the envelope, but there was nothing else. No note of explanation, nothing. I turned my eyes to the cartridge once more, turning it over in my hands to examine it. It bore no title, no markings but a pair of smeared, rust-colored stains at each top corner and the words, "Watch Me" written in red Sharpie across the front. I frowned faintly once more and stood, crossing the short distance from my bed to the opposite wall where a small television sat atop an old crate and a VCR I'd picked up at Goodwill back when Lenny found out I'd never seen Tron.

I knelt down and tried to fit the cassette into the machine but wrinkled my nose as the cartridge refused to slide into the slot. I blew out a puff of air in frustration and sat back on my heels, studying the tape again before I blinked and gave a low, soft groan.

Betamax.

Fucking Betamax. How the hell could I find out what was on this mystery tape when the Invictus isn't exactly known for its thriving AV club?

Who the hell did I know that was perpetually stuck in the late eighties?

"Ohhhh, snap! The fly honey has smelled the sugar the spider's brewin' up. I know you know there ain't nobody sweeter, Madam Reevalicious. Come to Johnny Billz. Tell him what you need."

The Master of Elysium sat reclined in a large circular booth of purple vinyl, flanked by two women with more breasts than god had given anyone and less clothing than I was entirely willing to believe that He had sent them into the world with. The flashing lights of The 411 lit the sparkling chains that played at holding back their swaying curves in a way that is best described as tenuous, and as I approached, they slunk a little closer to Master Billz, shooting me cutting looks from beneath sooty lashes.

He brushed them away as I came to a stop before him, though, giving no more than a dismissive flick of his hand and a curt, "Bitches, leave."

They huffed but obeyed him promptly, sliding out of the booth and disappearing into the jostling crowd around them with no more than the soft jingling of chains and the lingering scent of Obsession. Master Billz smiled and gestured to the empty space they'd left, and as I sat slowly, wary of the suspiciously damp nature of the vinyl, he waved an expansive hand to the crew of young men sharing the booth with him or lounging close by in the shadows.

"Let me introduce to you the Mean Street Posse. My boyz. Dat's Jonny Backflip and dat's Joey Dallas. Over there, Tone Def, Toot Sweet, Twenny Bux, Boo T. Licious and Tommy Bahama."

I paused a moment as my brain finally caught up to my surroundings.

"I thought you said Tommy…Master Bahama was ashed."

Master Billz made a noncommital noise and waved a hand around.

"So I made a mistake. Man, I got so many of these motherfuckers followin' me around and baskin' in my glory. I can't be expected ta keep perfect count of who's who that's getting' ashed and who ain't at any given moment! N-E-Wayz. Over there, we have T-Roy Dreamin, and the one in the mighty fine hat is Buck Nazty. And dat's…oh, god dammit, Tommy, what I tell you about bringin' your dad in here?"

A middle aged man with a crew cut hidden partially by a bucket hat and a pineapple themed Hawaiian shirt strolled forward, offering me his hand.  
"Bahama Bob, little missy," he intoned in a voice as smooth as custard. "You just let old Bob know if there's a thing you need. I'll-" He was cut off abruptly as a red-faced Tommy pulled him away, muttering under his breath the whole time.

"Dammit, Dad, I don't know why you gotta make me look like a chump in front of Johnny all the damn time…"

They disappeared into the haze of smoke and light and Master Billz turned his attention back to me, flashing a dazzling smile that showed the hints of gold-plated fangs as he slid across the seat closer to me and wrapped a pale arm around my shoulders.

"Now tell me, you sweet sexy thing," he murmured, so close against my neck I could smell the stink of blood and cocaine on him. "How can Johnny Billz be of service to you?"

For a moment, as he pressed close I felt a wave of…something wash over me. Things grew fuzzy and all I could see was just how blue his eyes were and how nice he smiled and how I wanted to run my hands all over him beneath that big, beautiful fur coat.

For a moment.

Then I blinked and snapped my head back, shaking away the strange dreamlike haze that was clouding my vision and gritting my teeth. I realized just what it was that he'd been doing when I looked back at him and the vision of the handsome, dapper young creature of the night before me faded away into the truth of a pathetic, puffed up babe in a cheap coat. Motherfucker. I hate being hit with Majesty even more than I hate being Dominated.

The truth was, however, that I needed him. For now, anyway. So, I pasted on a smile and swallowed back the urge to break his gold-plated teeth in for pulling a stunt like that. There would be plenty of time for that later.

"For one, Master Billz," I murmured as I peeled his arm a way from me without quite dropping my smile. "I'd appreciate it if you never refer to me as 'sweet sexy thing' again. Reeve Agrippa will do just fine. For another…" I dug the Betamax out of the folds of my coat, tapping him lightly on one oiled pectoral with it. "I need a machine that will let me view this."

He blinked a few times and tilted down his sunglasses to get a better look at what I was hitting him with.

"What? Oh, yeah, momma, yeah! Sure I do! Come on…" He stood grandly, the folds of his heavy white coat billowing around him like a cloud before he took my hand and kissed it with a sly leer that staggered frantically to pull him back from my dismissal.

"And maybe when we're done watchin' your little movie you can show your 'preciation to Johnny Billz by hikin' up that skirt and lettin' him smack that fat-"

I lifted a hand, catching his jaw in a way that the casual observer would see as flirtatious. Only I could feel the bone crack beneath the tips of my fingers.

"Just the Betamax player, Johnny. And it had better be somewhere private," I murmured. He nodded as much as he could with the vice grip I had on his face, pointing with one ringed hand to a featureless gray door half hidden behind the bar. I smiled, patting him on the cheek before I dropped him lightly back into his seat.

"Thank you, Master Billz."

As I slipped away, I thought I heard his voice, dejected and petulant behind me.

"Man, now I ain't ever gettin' a piece of that sweet ass…"

The featureless grey door led me to a sizeable room filled with the soft whirring of computer equipment. Monitors displayed grainy black and white images of the dance floor and the parking lot and a few of the inner rooms, silently telling me that I'd been shown to the security hub of the Elysium.

I glanced behind me, locking the door carefully before I chose one of the bulky players and sat carefully down in front of it. There was an oversized slot that lifted with a press of the large button next to it, and I carefully slid the cartridge into place before pressing it closed again. I wrinkled my nose as I searched the panel before me of buttons and blinking lights before I managed to make an intelligent guess and watched the screen before me flicker into life as I pressed one of the switches.

The screen flared with static before the scattered image at last resolved into that of an out of focus face in extreme close up. A pair of blurry hands lifted and made indecipherable adjustments with the lens before the picture came slowly into clarity. It was Lenny's face that stared back at me, though the smile that I loved so much was replaced with a cold, thin grin and I knew that right now it wasn't Lenny behind those silver eyes.

Simon remained crouched for a moment, one hand out of sight as he used it to keep hold of the camera and speak softly into it.

"Hello, Diana," he murmured. "I know you think I've been…neglecting you. But you musn't let yourself think that. I'd never neglect you, Diana. Never…" He gave a low, dark laugh and whispered, "Good things come to those who wait."

The camera tilted and spun out of focus for a moment again as Simon disappeared from the frame. The scene shifted as he turned the camera, and suddenly it was not Simon who filled the screen but rather the pale, slightly blurred body of a naked woman, suspended from the ceiling by thick iron meat hooks pierced through her ankles. She wasn't moving, and for a moment I thought she might be dead, but then Simon paced languidly into the frame and knelt down, catching the woman by her chin and turning her head forcefully toward the camera so her red-gold hair fell away from her face and revealed the terrified visage of Ilyana Romanov.

"You pig," she spat, though the vehemence of her words belied the fear that sat as heavy as stone within them. "Do you know who I am? DO YOU KNOW WHAT ALVISE WILL DO TO YOU?"

Simon's cold, grating laugh cut into her words like a dull knife as he dropped her chin and turned, walking slowly out of the frame again with steps that echoed against the cold stone beneath his feet like the merciless tick of a pendulum. The only answer he gave her was the sudden violent growl of a gas engine being kicked to life. I saw her eyes widen, the emerald green suddenly brought into contrast by the onslaught of bloody tears.

"No," she whispered, the natural sultry tones of her voice now strained and pleading. "No, you can't…"

When Simon slid back into the frame, he was swinging one arm lazily back and forth with the rhythm of the idling chainsaw he carried. She struggled madly, twitching on the chain like a bloodied rabbit in a snare and he knelt down slowly, grabbing her by the curls again and dragging her face up to meet his eyes. While her form was blurred by the curse of our people, Simon's was crystal clear, and I saw his eyes flash with enjoyment as he drank in her screams and leaned down, his lips a breath from hers.

"Reeve Agrippa sends a message," he whispered. "Do svydania. Comrade."

And then he threw back his head and laughed. Loud and long until it mingled with her gargling screams.

My hands were shaking as the images faded away into static, and they shook still as I reached one out to press the stop button. The other I slid slowly over my chest, down over the rough fabric that covered the smooth circle of my belly and further slowly down between my legs. I pressed hard against the thick fabric of my jeans, feeling a jolt of pleasure make its way up through my belly and into somewhere deep inside. I took a deep, cold breath, shivering in the last lingering glow of the what I'd just born witness to.

It faded all too soon, though, and I was left without anything to distract me from the knot of tension in my belly. I stared at my blurred reflection as it stared back at me from the now blank monitor, willing it to provide me with a few answers.

How could I convince Simon to come back when I'd just received my payment for promising to leave him alone? And if Lenny had somehow managed to come back to his senses in the last hour, would he even consider helping a Prince who'd had him publicly beaten? Questions, I suppose, that were both moot points, seeing as how I didn't have the first clue how to find him, no matter _which_ one was in charge.

I gave a low sigh of irritation and jerked the tape free from the machine. As I turned to the door, it was suddenly opened by a sheepish looking young man. A Ghoul, perhaps, judging from the cokeheaded strain in his eyes as he looked at me.

"Misstress? Master said I should come to get you. There's. There's a really big rottweiler out there and he says he wants to talk to you."

He swallowed nervously even as I brushed past him.

"It's no concern of yours or Master Billz," I answered. "It's only one of my…"

I paused then, and for the first time in several nights, I felt a very slow smile begin to turn up the corners of my mouth.

"…one of my dogs..."

Cerberus stood waiting for me in the alleyway, wagging his stump of a tail as much as his dignity allowed as he caught scent of me.

I knelt down and let him lick my hands, cautious, as ever, of the jagged teeth so eager behind the warm tongue.

"What news?" I murmured, and he lifted his head to look up at me, the light from the club marquis behind us catching red in his eyes. He growled low in his broad chest and I felt the sounds twist themselves into my comprehension through the strange power of my blood.

He was proud. He and Garm had begun putting together a new pack. Stray dogs and runaways to rebuild my own personal canine team of eyes and ears after Simon's little...game.

I felt myself smile slightly and lifted a hand to his heavy head.

"Good boy, yes," I said softly. "And that's something I want to talk to you about." I reached within my coat, pulling out the tape and holding it up to his broad muzzle. "I need you to find this scent. If it's somewhere in this city, I need you to find it. Get Garm. Get any dog you can find who will cooperate. Or who you can bully into cooperating. I need to find him."

The Rottweiler snuffed at the cassette and then looked at me with doleful, hungry eyes as he growled low in his chest questioningly again.

I tugged one of his ears sharp enough for him to feel it.

"Yes, and then you'll be fed. Find him, Cerberus. Five minutes ago."

He gave a low, complaining growl but took the cassette in his teeth, trotting off into the dark reaches of the alleyway.

I found my footsteps slowing as I approached Brookhaven again, a trepidition marking my gait as the shadow of the brick leviathon loomed over me that I had never felt before. I had been a good dog all my life, done what I was told and asked for nothing in return but the chance to serve further. Now I had pissed on the proverbial carpet, and I couldn't stop the tremor of fear deep in my stomach that somehow He knew what I'd done.

I tried to push down the unsettling roiling swell of panic that was twisting my guts, confident that if my own experience was any indication, Simon could cover his tracks perfectly well. For all my self-convincing, though, I was relieved to see Dr. North leaning up against the frame of the side door and giving me enough excuse to postpone my entrance. I was mildly bemused to see a cigarette between her lips, and her pale hand shook slightly as she drew it away from her mouth to exhale a cloud of smoke and nod to me.

Doctor North was a handsome woman when she was Embraced, and even now the unnatural pallor of undeath didn't taint her appearance as harshly as it did most of our kind. She appeared to be in her early fifties, the age lending a wisdom to the large, innocent grey eyes that still retained a trace of the humanity that abandoned most Kin long ago. Her blond hair was cut short and styled to lie close to her head in modest, professional look and she lifted a hand to brush a few fallen strands away from her eyes as she raised her head to greet me.

"Diana."

Dr. North was one of the few allowed to call me by my Christian name, so I easily let it slide with only a brief twinge or two. It's not like I'd ever been or ever would be able to convince her to do otherwise.

"Dr. North," I murmured, surprised by the concern I heard in my own voice. "Are you well?"

She took a drag off the cigarette I realized I'd never seen her employ before. Her answer was simple.

"No."

Most women might have been tempted to step forward here. To put a hand on a hurting shoulder and ask if there was anything to be done. I'm afraid, though, that I was about eighty-five years gone from remembering the delicate ins and outs of offering a tub of ice cream and asking how the bad man had hurt her. Lenny never did get around to "Sex and the City" in the self styled "Pop Culture Awareness Program" he'd put me through. Maybe that makes me a terrible human being. But then again, I'm not a human being anymore.

"I assume you've told Prince Moncinegro everything you can remember about your ordeal. We're having a difficult time determining Advocate Clark's...level of involvement."

Smoke trickled from her lips, shuddering slightly on her uneasy breath like water falling over small stones.

"I told him everything I could remember. It was... I don't know if all of it was exactly right. Sometimes in trauma, the brain...the brain shuts down." The cigarette shook between her lips as she rubbed her bony hands together, the thin skin over her fingertips unnaturally white in the darkness of the ally. She must have seen the impatience in my eyes because she hurriedly continued.

"I told him everything I could, Diana. Don't ask of me more than that. He...he frightens me."

She had doe's eyes. Limpid and just a little stupid as she stared up at my face. Stared up at me but didn't let her eyes settle for too long, as if she feared that with long study, she would find a mirror too close.

"And Clark?"

She was quiet, and I was certain at first that she wouldn't answer. The two of them were...unhealthily close. Something about his raving revolutionary tendancies must have made her tingle somehow. You could give Dr. North security tape evidence that Eric Clark spent his free time in the evenings raping kittens and she would likely try to prove that the kittens were Nazi sympathizers and had it coming. To my surprise, though, she did answer, lifting those saucer eyes to me.

"He... I... Eric wouldn't get involved in something like this. He wouldn't hurt me just to help himself."

A year ago I probably would have tried to convince her how stupid that sentence was, but by now I had learned to spot a losing argument before I wasted too much time on it; what Dr. North lacked in vampiric gifts she more than made up for in aggravating tenacity. So instead, I pushed past her gently, making for the door and was brought short only by her soft voice behind me.

"There...was a girl..."

I stopped in the doorway, and though I didn't turn to face her, she spoke still. For all that she was no more than ten feet behind me, her voice sounded strangely distant, quiet and hesitant...and so young.

"They kept me in a room without windows. Just a door. And sometimes that...that man would come in. And he'd tell me that I had to do what he wanted." She drew on the cigarette again, her hands shaking and waving smoke around her face like a shroud. "And there was a girl. He left a girl there. Diana. She was out of her mind on drugs and starving and he just threw her in there like she was nothing. He said he wouldn't let me out until I did what he wanted. He said I'd get hungry enough. He said..."

She shuddered as gently as I tried to keep my words civil and easy.

"He probably said a lot of things. Don't let them bother you. Carthians are scum and you should treat their words as such."

I turned to move inside again, and when she next spoke, it was so softly that I nearly didn't hear.

"Is that all this is?"

I paused, turning to look over my shoulder at her. She continued as I remained silent, her eyes somewhere far away, as if it wasn't me she was speaking with at all.

"She was a child. Thrown into the cage of a m... Of a m-monster like...like a rag doll for a dog to chew on. Whatever my answer to that...that man would have been, she was still just a doll to him. A...a _thing_ to be...to be used and consumed!" She was shaking so hard she dropped her cigarette, scattering embers as she knelt to retrieve it and looked imploringly up at me.

"That can't be what all of this means. We can't be just...j-just..."

"Monsters," I finished for her softly. She said nothing, and I watched her for a moment, knelt before me.

"Did you take her?" I asked quietly.

She stiffened; her eyes, still and soft as a dove's wing looked up at me blankly.

"Who? Did I...what?"

"The girl," I said, feeling my words chill and freeze in the still air between us. "Did you take her? Did you feed?"

She didn't answer me, and truthfully, I didn't need to hear anymore. I left her knelt there in the ally, supine before her ritual fire of ashes, and made my way inside.

Within the plush interior of Brookhaven, courtlife was continuing as normal. Pages and hangers-on rushed about on their nightly errands. Elders stood in close conferance in each secluded room I passed: sharing secrets and plotting backstabbings that would leave Brutus himself floored in awe. Evenso, it was comforting to me. By now, the dark and petty pageantry of Kindred society had grown familiar and constant, and even the sight of Keeper Rhodes hunched in slimy familiarity so close to my Prince's side as I entered the throne room was as sweet as a lullaby in face of the uncertainty that I had felt gnawing at my innards ever since Simon's recording had fallen into my hands.

"Diana," Alvise drawled, his words as ever as smooth as crushed velvet. He lifted one of his perfect hand, beckoning me closer like an artist drawing his brush to hand.

"One or two fleas to place in your ear, my pet. The first of which is our poor Master of Elysium, Master Bills. He seems...mmm...all the more paranoid as of late. Considering the fluff that usually inhabits what I most generously call his mind; I'm sure it's all nothing. But he seems increasingly convinced that someone is...'out to get him.' Turn your attention, please, to finding out whether his complaints are justified."

I bowed my head and turned to leave before the slightest clearing of his throat brought me up short again.

"I said a flea...or two, Diana. The second I would bring to your attention is the absence of Ilyana."

Her name was poison on his lips and I felt myself stiffen. Slowly, I convinced my body to relax.

"Ilyana?"

_There was no way he could know. He could never know..._

He lifted himself up off of his throne and made his way on cat's feet close to me where he laid a hand as chill as a knife against my face.

"My Ilyana," he whispered. "I took her to my chambers and left her sleeping. And now she is gone. Have you seen her, madame Reeve? Have you seen your sister?"

I stared up into his eyes, and suddenly, for the first moment in my life, I felt the lie slip easily from my lips.

"No, Sir."

"No?" his repetition of my words was soft and condemning. "She is your sister and one of your Hounds. I find it a rare fact indeed that you would...let her act outside of your realm of absolute knowledge."

There was something taunting in his smile, and I unwittingly let it fuel my deciet.

"I am not my sister's keeper. The last I saw her was our business with the Carthians, and she seemed fine at that point."

He turned his eyes to me slowly, ancient and cold and devouring every secret I now felt rising to my face. I curled my hands into fists, feeling them begin to shake beneath the bite of my fingernails as for a long, long moment he simply watched me. The moments ticked by slowly, and I shuddered as the overwhelming urge to throw myself at his feet and confess all rose like bile in my throat, the strength of his presence pressing in close around me like a relentless, squeezing fist.

And then just as suddenly the spell was broken and he turned away again, leaving me spent but still, mercifully, silent.

"I see. Well. I suppose I shall have to settle for your company tonight instead. I expect to see you there once your duties have come to completion."

I bowed low and turned for the door, feeling his words brush chilly along the back of my neck as he whispered after me, "I am getting impatient, Diana. It's been near three nights since I told you to find Mercer and you've given me nothing. I advise you not keep me waiting for long."

I slipped out of the Prince's audience chambers, a thick heaviness in my chest that I had come to recognize as what once would have been my heart hammering. At the end of the long hallway, I saw Seneschal Regal round the corner and head in my direction. His attention was fixed on an open manila file folder held balanced in one hand, a rare mercy that gave me the opportunity to duck out of sight into the restroom as I passed it. I needed to take a moment and gather myself, and I didn't need that jackass finding an excuse to get in my face while I did it.

The restroom was empty, silent save for the echo of my footsteps on the tiled floor and the barely audible hum of the movement of water through hidden pipes. Stepping slowly up to one of the large, gilded mirrors I took a deep breath and let my forehead come to a rest against it.

The glass was cool against my skin, but not so much that it soothed the whirlwind I felt racing through stolen blood in my veins, playing on endless loop a mocking mummer's dance of my sins. The chill in Alvise's eyes...the sound of Ilyana's gurling screams...Lenny's shy smile...and always and always the sound of Simon's laughter echoing over it all.

I screwed my eyes shut and tried to drown out that wretched sound, biting my lower lip without even noticing until fang pierced flesh and a single drop of blood fell against the mirror's silvered glass. Whether it was some trick of the light or some invention of an overtired mind I'm not sure to this day, but as I watched the trail of muddled crimson roll lazily down the glass, I could almost swear I saw it seep into its own reflection...a twisted, sanguine Through the Looking Glass. Absently, I lifted my hand to touch and break the illusion...and it was then I realized that the laughter ringing in my ears was all too real.

"Reeve Agrippa..." a soft voice, cold as the edge of a razor whispered in my ear.

I jolted upright and stumbled back from the mirror, narrowing my eyes as they came to rest on the figure that appeared to recline lazily within the confines of the glass like a moving photograph framed in bronze. I had seen Lenny do this before of course, but it never made it any less eerie to me to stare into a mirror and see his face staring back.

Simon grinned that shark's grin of his, dead-eyed and full of teeth.

"I'm surprised to see you here," he said. "Shouldn't you be enjoying your end of our bargain?" he purred. "Or pehaps the Prince's advances toward Miss Romanov were more than a mere whim?"

I felt the Beast twist angrily in my stomach at his words and forced it carefully down again. I couldn't afford to piss him off. Couldn't afford to snap. Not now.

"I've been looking for you. I need...we need to talk."

I saw him reach to touch the glass where my blood had fallen, and when he drew his fingers away the tips were stained dark red. He rubbed thumb and forefinger together slowly before he lifted his flat dead eyes to me.

"What matter would we have to discuss? Our business relationship has ended."

"Simon, just-"

He cut me off sharply, baring the tips of his fangs in half of a snarl.

"You're not known for your social calls, Diana. No... You _want _something." He paused, and the cold silver eyes searched mine like a man looking for the missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle. "Either you are unsatisfied with my... _services_...or you wish to negotiate a new contract. Which is it?"

I stepped forward, gripping the bronzed frame of the mirror slowly.

"I can make it worth your while. Give me the chance. One last favor. One last favor..."

I saw him pause and scrub a hand along the grimey stubble of his jaw, sizing me up as if I were an amusingly colored fish in a tank.

"What are your terms?" He said, more of a command than a question.

I took a deep breath and ran my fingers back through my hair, feeling them snag lightly in the braid before I could detangle them and answer him.

"I need... I mean, Alvise needs. The Prince...he requests you come and aid the First Estate in ferreting out a traitor."

He blinked once, slow and cooly, then came that devilish grin of his.

"Go on," he mused.

I felt myself relax a little inside. Felt my grip loosen in its death hold on the mirror.

"Advocate Clarke has been brought before the Primogen on charges of kidnapping Almoner North and plotting insurrection against the First Estate."

Simon smirked, appearing to lean one shoulder lazily up against the frame of the mirror.

"Advocate Clarke plotting betrayal?" he drawled flatly. "Surely, you jest. His history with the Invictus should speak for itself." His dead eyes flashed a moment as his smirk widened into a full grin.

I bit back a sharp reply and instead just pushed on over him.

"The _problem _is that there's another contender in the game. A man named Nicholas Jackson. Clarke's insistance is that all of this was Jackson's doing. Jackson pins it all on Clarke. We need...we need someone who can find out which one is lying."

Simon watched me without replying as he picked at his fangs with one jagged fingernail. When he seemed satisfied that I had no more to add, he spit to one side without taking his eyes off of mine.

"Why not simply... _remove _them both? Is the Prince not clever enough to think of that on his own?"

I shook my head faintly. "Because Prince Alvise is not going to condemn both when one may be innocent-"

I was cut off by cold, sinister laughter and I winced as the sound seemed to saw against my ribcage. His head snapped up to me suddenly, though, and his eyes were dark and mirthless.

"This holds no interest for me." He turned abruptly and started to fade off deeper into the reflection. I gripped the frame, shaking the whole thing lightly in desperation and fury at the pleading I could hear in my own voice.

"Wait! Simon... Simon, He's going to kill me if you refuse to come. There must be something you want. There has to be something."

He turned his head to look at me over his shoulder, silver eyes narrowed and gleaming faintly.

"Indeed, there is Reeve. Your end of our original agreement, and you would do well to remember it."

He snarled, flashing the tips of fangs tinted a faint rust red before he turned and simply walked out of the reflection.

I blinked and felt the wood begin to splinter beneath my fingers as I gripped the frame.

"Simon... Simon!"

I shook the frame hard before slamming my hands against the glass with fingers outspread.

"Simon!"

There was no answer.


	7. Staring Down the Barrel of a 45

_The sky was beginning to turn to slate blue far in the East, but we were half a mile below the earth and far away from the burning rays of the nascent sun. We were sprawled on the beat up couch that rested against one wall of my Haven, our faces lit by the flashing blues and greens of the small television set. My head was on his shoulder and he gave a grunt of disgust as I reached lazily up to steal the cigarette we were sharing from his lips and take a drag._

"_What the hell is this chump doing?"_

_ I exhaled smoke slowly and turned my head to peer at the screen in an attempt to decipher what was irritating him so much. There was a rugged detective in a bulletproof vest kneeling down next to a bloody body. He scratched the rugged stubble on his rugged chin and reached out to pick up the small baggy of white powder that lay next to the twisted dead man. _

"_Aww don't do it. Don't you fuckin' do it."_

_ I wrinkled my nose and twisted to look up at him._

"_What? What's he gonna do?"_

_ The detective on the screen opened the little baggy and dipped a finger into the white powder before slowly flicking his tongue out and tasting it._

"_What the fuck man! Don't put that shit in your mouth!"_

_I laughed and twisted around onto my back to look up at him, drawing slowly off the cigarette again._

"_Don't you watch any cop dramas at all? He's checking to see if it's cocaine or heroin or something."_

_ Lenny groaned and collapsed back against the couch. He reached over and plucked the cigarette from my lips so he could take a long drag before waving it around like a conductor with a baton._

"_He doesn't know what that shit is! It could be anything! It could be anthrax for all he knows, and he's putting it in his fucking mouth? Jesus, if there's white powder all over a dead hooker, I'm not gonna fucking lick it off! I'm pretty sure whatever it is, it's somethin' I don't want to put in my mouth!"_

_I grinned through the wreath of smoke he blew carelessly in my direction._

"_So how do you tell?"_

_ "How do you tell what?"_

_ "What the powder is, of course."_

"_Good Christ woman, you send it to the lab!"_

_I lifted one hand casually, covering a smile. I loved teasing him when he was like this. He'd get so worked up and the strange mirrored silver of his eyes would flash like lightening and for a little while the dejected, frightened neonate would disappear and I'd see __**him**__. Really see him like I think no one else ever saw._

"_Lab?" I asked innocently. "What lab?"_

"_The lab! The goddamn lab! The forensic fucking science lab! They have guys there that run that shit through fucking machines to see what the fuck it is. You don't just blindly put mystery powders in your God damned mouth!"_

"_I thought CSI agents where the ones out there doing all of the investigating and beating up the bad guys and-"_

_Lenny slammed a palm against his forehead. "No! God, no! I __**was**__ CSI. I was a fucking lab rat. I spent my time analyzing fabric samples and…and residue!_

_These fucking crime shows have the audience believing that CSI agents are lab techs, beat cops, and God damned SWAT all wrapped into one. Holy fuck!"_

_I was laughing hard now and not bothering to cover it anymore, so it finally seemed to sink in that I was teasing him. He frowned and reached to yank the pillow out from under my head and whip it at my face._

"_Oh, you bitch."_

_ I laughed and threw the pillow back at him, shifting to prop my feet in his lap._

"_Yeah. And that's why you love me."_

_ He shook his head with that strange smile of his and reached over to place the cigarette back between my lips._

"_Whatever, ya dirty bitch," he murmured. "Fuck…"_

_**V V V V V V V **  
_

"It's gone, Al, it's gone! The whole motherfuckin' thing is gone!"

The outcry broke like an ice pick into my daydreams, shattering them into fragments that faded to mist and brought my reluctant attention back to the matter at hand.

Master of Elysium Billz stood before Alvise's throne, his hands outspread in consternation and impotent rage. The floor-length fur coat he had worn with such pride the night of the gala was now a mottled black and grey, with the occasional sad splotch of snowy white still showing beneath his arms. Streaks of soot and ash smudged his face, leaving his wide azure eyes startling against the grime as he began to pace, counting off on his fingers.

"Toot Sweet, Twenny Bux, Joey Backflip, Ton Def...all fuckin' ash, man! The dance floor, the stage the motherfuckin' bar! Everythin! My new H3, man! My sweet-ass, pimped out, bitch crackin' Hummer! They bombed the goddamn club, Al! My motherfuckin' club!"

I let a slow breath enter my lungs and let go of it gradually through my nose. Two days. It had been two days since I had sent Garm and his pack off into the streets of Baltimore, and still I'd heard nothing. Lenny...Simon...whichever of him it was and wherever he was in this city, he was leaving no more of a trail than a ghost.

Despite the seeming impossibility of my assigned task, I hadn't let despair sink in just yet and had kept to the streets, searching one at a time each haunt and hideaway that I could remember Lenny running to when things got too hot. In hindsight, perhaps if I hadn't been so single-mindedly focused on finding Lenny, I could have prevented the mysterious disaster that had destroyed The 411. As it was, it had surprised me just as much as everyone else when reports of explosions rocking through the building and killing most of those who had been within came trickling like wildfire into Brookhaven.

And so, there I was, trying very hard to stop myself from twitching in irritation as I stood at attention at Alvise's lefthand side, listening to the outraged squawkings of Master Johnathan Billz.

"I swear ta god, Al, I swear ta god. I am three seconds away from callin' Blood Hunt here and teachin' this shitheel some goddamn manners myself, man!"

Alvise held up one pale hand, silencing Master Billz as effectively as if he had clamped it over the young Kin's mouth. I glanced sidelong at the Prince, sitting relaxed in his heavy oak chair. Once again I was surprised to see that only faint amusement touched his eyes and not the rage I would have expected from such an...impressive display of impudence.

"Peace, Master Bills," he murmured. He leaned back gently in his seat, lifting one leg and crossing the ankle over his knee. "I assure you that I see to the needs of all my...beloved Primogen." He turned his head slowly, letting his eyes come to rest on Archon Shay who leaned lazily in the shadows against the far wall.

"Do you have any report to make, Master Shay?"

The Archon strode forward into the circle of candlelight and removed the stub of a cigar from his mouth.

"I gotta few good leads, Prince Moncinegro. Don't you worry. I'll have this wrapped up before the week is out."

Alvise nodded and for a moment I almost swore I saw a glint of malicious amusement in the Archon's deadened eyes. It was gone in an instant, though, leaving as far as I knew none the wiser. Master Billz wasn't so molllified, though, and stood wringing his hands.

"But, AL-"

He was cut off by a sharp clearing of the throat that hid behind the amused smile Keeper Rhodes barely bothered to keep from his face.

"It's indeed a pity, Master Billz. To see such a grand Elysium swept away before its time. 'Tis like watching Rome fall all over again." He clucked his tongue against his teeth gently and turned his eyes toward the Prince. "And I assure you, Prince Moncinegro," the Keeper purred, touching a manicured hand to his breast. "Anything I can do to aid in the righting of such a wrong is at your disposal."

"A generous gesture, Keeper Rhodes, one that will be well remembered, I assure you. Very well..." The Prince made a faint gesture with the tips of his fingers. "Master Bills, you may take control of the Venetian as your new Elysium."

"WHAT?"

Every head in the room turned slowly to Keeper Rhodes as he vaulted out of his seat. He stood there panting for a split second, his hands half clenched into fists. I could almost swear I saw the Beast rise up within him and rattle at his ribcage. It was only a fractioned moment, though, before he seemed to suddenly realize where he was and wrestled it down again, ever the vision of calm collection. He lifted a hand, adjusting the crimson silk tie at his throat.

"...an honor! Whaaat an honor." He cleared his throat gently and gifted Master Billz with an oily smile. "My little old Elysium run by the Master himself. Well, well... I'll see to getting the account books and crew rosters all tidy and ship shape first thing tomorrow evening. I'm sure you'll want the inventories as well. It shouldn't take me more than a month. Two at the absolute most..."

Master Billz waved a hand flippantly.

"Nah, nah, nah, my neezy. Don't you worry about all that." He straightened the wide lapels of his sequined jacket, flashing a glint of golden fangs. "Johnny Billz has a vision in his head and he's startin' to like it. A complete refurbishin'. A whole new look. Yeah..." He clapped Keeper Rhodes on the back, earning himself a dirty look as he turned back to Alvise.

"You one swank ass motherfucker, Al. You come around once I got my new place all fixed up, yeah? All the free titties jubblin' in your face you want."

The Prince held up a hand as if to stop him. He blinked sharply as Master Johnny Billz, apparently mistaking this as an invitation for a "hi five" slapped it lightly in a complicated pattern, tapped his chest twice with a closed fist and threw up a peace sign.

"We cool, Al. We cool."

He turned then, gesturing to his posse. What was left of them, anyhow. They stood as one and followed after him as he strode out of the chamber in a spectacle of flashing sequins, leaving an audience of jaws hanging half-open in his wake.

The heavy doors closed behind Master Billz with a dull thud. The chamber remained silent, the gathered Primogen still lost in shock until the hush was broken by Keeper Rhodes clearing his throat.

"Ah... Your Highness?"

Alvise was examining his fingernails in a bored manner, and he looked up at Rhodes as if he had forgotten that he was there.

"Hmmm?"

Rhodes smoothed a hand along the perfectly tailored silk lapel of his suit.

"It's only that... Well, your most honorable Highness...the Venetian was **my** Elysium. I sympathize with Master Billz's unfortunate loss. It pains me, in fact. To the core..."

The bored look had left Alvise's eyes, a dangerous glint touching them though his sprawl in his chair remained just as lazy.

"Are you suggesting, Keeper Rhodes," he said softly. "That my decision was...questionable?"

Rhodes through up his hands, laughing through his nose in that high-pitched way that always grated against my eardrums.

"My Prince, you couldn't have misunderstood me more. I was merely asking whether I am ah... Whether I have done something to anger you that would strip me of my title entirely simply because of Master Billz's unfortunate...ah...misfortune."

Alvise rose to his feet with the strange grace that filled his every motion, like oil moving over water.

"Keeper Rhodes," he said quietly. "I'm shocked you would think me capable of such a lack of thought."

Rhodes flustered and opened his mouth again, but Alvise cut him off with a faint gesture of one pale hand.

"Peace, Keeper," he murmured. "Don't think so ill of me. There are many Elysiums in this city, and at least one of them holds a Keeper who has not kept my favor so well as yourself. You'll be given a new little barony of blood and stone to rule over, as only one of your wisdom can."

Rhodes bowed slowly and stepped back again, apparently mollified for now, though I think perhaps only I caught the flicker in his eyes. As if he weren't entirely sure whether he was being subtly insulted or not.

Alvise's mouth turned up faintly up at one corner, though no humor lingered in the expression, perhaps lending another whisper of doubt to the answer to that question before he turned his cold eyes to me.

"And to the other matters of this Court," he murmured. "I seem to remember two of my subjects that I had tasked you to find, Madame Reeve. I trust you have news, Diana. Good. News."

I felt the world drop out from under me as his eyes locked on mine. I opened my mouth slowly, reluctant, knowing there would be nothing but failure and lies on my lips. Suddenly though, a voice cracked out in the dull hush of the room: brazen and cold and mocking.

"ALVISE MONCINEGRO."

The Prince turned his gaze slowly, and all eyes within the room followed his.

In the entrance to the grand chamber, leaning with practiced ease callously against the door frame stood a tall, lean figure. The shadows of the room left him mostly in darkness and still what light there was played strangely in the silver of his eyes. Slowly he stepped forward, and as he broke into the circle of candles, their subtle light brought no warmth to the sharp, hungry features of his face.

Simon smiled.

"You rang?"

**V V V V V V V**

The room had been emptied of Ghouls and hangers-on, as well as those Primogen whose position in our city was less one of security and more one of predictable backstabbing. As it was, that left the Archons: Shay and Blackwell as well as my two Khaibet "brothers" LeLean the Frenchman and Chuluun the Mongol, myself and Seneschal Regal. Almoner North had moved to leave when Alvise had dismissed the rest, but I directed a curt shake of my head to her and, with obvious reluctance, she hung behind, chewing one of her thumbnails just beyond the circle of candlelight.

Alvise had returned to his seat, and was watching the thin, smirking figure that stood before him with glittering eyes.

"Well," he said at last, quietly and with a sort of amused finality. "Here we are again, Master Mercer. How good of you to come."

Simon's smirk thinned a little bit and his voice held no humor. "You brought me here for a purpose, Moncinegro. Speak quickly and don't waste my time with vacuous Invictus lip service. I'm supposed to be dodging a Blood Hunt, remember?" His unpleasant smile sharpened a little as Alvise narrowed his eyes.

"So you are," the Prince intoned dryly. He steepled his fingers gently, studying Simon's grubby form over the tips of them. "Though that need not be the case. Conduct yourself properly in these proceedings and you will be granted clemency."

"Is that so?" Simon's voice was soft and musing. There was something I didn't like about it, but I didn't really have the time to figure out what exactly it was, as the Prince was speaking again.

"I'm a man of my word, Master Mercer-"

"When it's convenient, at least," Simon cut him off with a cold laugh. "Same way you're 'just and fair' when you have the pressing need to avoid yet another Carthian uprising. Oh don't worry," he continued almost lazily when Alvise's hands began to tighten dangerously on the arms of his seat. "I have every intentention of servicing you. As to your offer of payment... Well. We'll see if it's still just as tempting when we're finished with this charade."

Alvise's thin smile stretched a little unnaturally over his teeth. "Indeed we shall," he murmured. He gestured faintly and LeLean slipped as silent as a shadow up to his side. The Prince spoke quietly to him without ever lifting his eyes from Simon and the Frenchman nodded before he made a curt gesture to the Mongol. Both of them faded back into the shadows again, leaving the room in an uncomfortable silence.

To the relief of all in attendance, save perhaps Simon who was picking his teeth in disinterest with a grubby fingernail, the two were not too long in returning. LeLean had Clark by one elbow in a vise grip. The Carthian's arms were pinned behind him, manacled in place with thick iron bands. He faired no worse than the man being tugged along behind him, though; Jackson's arm was nearly engulfed in Chuluun's large hand at what looked like a highly uncomfortable angle.

The two were deposited next to Simon in a heap at Alvise's feet. Clark pushed himself upward unsteadily, but a grunt of pain was forced from him and he went to his knees again as Archon Shay slammed the butt of his rifle into his shins.

"You just go ahead and cool your heels there, darlin'," he rasped. Clark glared at him but said nothing, just curled his lip and looked back to the Prince.

"Master Mercer," Alivse intoned softly. "At least one of these men was responsible for the kidnapping and incarceration of Almoner North. This court requests-"

"I know what you 'request', Moncinegro. Spare me the platitudes." I felt the Beast lurch within me at the same time I saw it flash bright in Alvise's face. Simon paid no heed, though. He simply turned his eyes to the two men at his feet as the candlelight shimmered strangely within their mirrored depths.

"Two little cuckoo birds..." he murmured. He never completed the thought, though, just flashed a fang in an unpleasant grin and reached out, grabbing Jackson by the sharp lapel of his natty white suit. The Carthian didn't resist, though he didn't exactly look happy either. As it was, he had no choice but to meet Simon's unnatural gaze, and he stood enraptured by it like a small rodent staring into the face of the snake twisted around it.

They stood so for an interminable amount of time, locked in each others' sights. Finally, though, Simon dropped Jackson with an expressionless snort. The Carthian staggered where he was and reflexively lifted his hands to his head to press hard against his eyes as if in agony. When he could lift his head again he turned it, snarling like a dog gone mad.

"What the loving FUCK was that! You two-bit piece of shit, I'll-"

Simon had grabbed Clark by his suspenders and was hauling him upright. At Jackson's words, though, he paused and turned his head to stare a moment at the man. I couldn't see Simon's face from where I was standing. I don't know what passed between them, but I do know that Nicholas Jackson, top dollar Carthian mercenary, quickly shut his mouth and found somewhere else to look.

The air in the room was tense as Simon held his unblinking stare on Jackson for a moment longer before he slowly looked back to Clark. I stared hard into Eric's face as Simon held him close and captive in that mesmorizing silver gaze, and I don't really know what I expected to find there. I wasn't a mindreader. I lacked the gift to even tell one aura from another, and still I stared into the dark brown eyes of the friend who did his best to spend half of his time as my enemy. I may have been searching for some hint of hope. Some whisper that against my instinct, my better judgement, and my long list of past experiences, Eric Clark was telling the truth.

What I saw there, however, was fear. Oh, he was trying to hide it. Clark was a liar and a cheat when he was still alive, and death had only sharpened those talents, so I doubt anyone else quite caught it. Even so, I was his friend and I could see it there clearly. A glimmer of pure terror. And...something else. Something that flickered up slowly underneath the terror as Simon bored into him. I couldn't quite name it, though, and before I had a chance to think it over, Simon dropped Clark roughly onto the floor and turned back to the Prince, leaving Clark groaning and rubbing at his eyes behind him.

If the room had been quiet before there was absolute silence now. Alvise raised one of his elegant brows just faintly as Simon stood before him, examining his fingernails for a moment as if in thought. I felt myself take a reflexive breath. Clark looked terrified. Jackson looked smug.

And then he looked very surprised indeed when Simon suddenly lifted a hand and pointed at him.

"Him. He's the one lying to you."

Jackson staggered to his feet again, his eyes lit on fire in rage. "Hold on just one god damned minute-" he snarled.

"Diana..."

Before the word had even fully left the Prince's lips I had a gun in my hand, the familiar grip of the .500 a comfortable weight in my palm. From that moment, it was as if everything moved in airy slow motion, and I can remember to this day the way every shadow fell; every line and crease of Jackson's face as he whirled toward me. His eyes were sharp and his fangs slightly bared as he opened his mouth, perhaps to curse my name before he fell or to beg for the mercy he knew wouldn't come. I'll never know. The first bullet took him just under the nose, shattering his front teeth and splitting through the soft palate with a spray of viscera and bone. He gave a garbled cry and fell half forward, clutching at the ruin of his face, but the sound was cut off abrupty as three more shots followed in quick succession, slamming into his forehead in a wet, thick explosion of stolen blood and rotten meat.

Smoke hung in the air as the body sunk slowly to the ground, the dull thud it made the only sound in the room save for the dry clink of bullet casings shifting as I emptied the spent chamber. I prodded Jackson's body with the toe of one boot gently. He remained solid. Torpored, but not yet ash. I looked up to my Prince, and when he gave a curt nod of his head, I leaned down to jam the barrel of the Smith and Wesson up into the soft meat of Jackson's throat and blew the top of his head off.

The body crumbled slowly to ash and fragments of dusty bone at my feet. Alvise rose slowly and gestured lightly to LeLean once more as he looked to the mess with a faint hint of disgust.

"Find one of the Ghouls and have this mess disposed of. Well, Master Mercer. Once more your inimitable power of insight has pulled your backside from the fire. Congratulations."

Simon was already halfway to the door. He stopped where he was and looked back over his shoulder at Alvise, his lip curled faintly to reveal the dull ivory of one fang.

"I am suffused with jubilation," he drawled flatly before he turned away again.

"Your way in Baltimore is not clear yet, Mercer," Alvise said coldly. "There will be an assemblage of the city's Kindred in two day's time. You will appear before the court and publicly swear your fealty to me. Then and only then will your banishment be lifted."

Simon laughed, soft and low in his throat, and only slowly did he turn his head to look over his shoulder at the Prince again.

"You needn't bother. Your so-called Blood Hunt is the least of my worries." For a half second his eyes flickered to me and a measure of added unpleasantness touched his sneer. "Incidentally... You may want to question your Reeve as to what she's been doing with her leisure time these last few nights. I think you'd find it very interesting indeed."

His words were cut off by the sharp crack of gunfire and I startled, spinning and lifting the gun in my hand again to try and pinpoint the attacker.

Archon Shay's eyes were glazed over in hatred, his grip white-knuckle tight as he cradled the BAR in his hands, still holding it leveled at where Simon stood. Or rather...where he **had** stood. There was the ear-splitting sound of shattering glass as the rifle rounds slammed into Simon; it mingled with the roar of the gunshot and a slowly building cold, dead laughter. Simon's form cracked and splintered as we watched, leaving only a pile of scattered mirror shards and the echoes of that laughter ringing in our ears.

Archon Shay snorted and lowered his gun slowly.

"Nancy. He sure went down easy enough for a guy who talks so big."

I gave a low growl, pacing over to the shards of glass and kicking one boot through them lightly.

"This look like ash to you, Shay?" I asked flatly, turning to glare at the scruffy Archon. "This was nothing more than another of his goddamned mirror tricks. He's fucking with us again. Put the pea shooter away and next time wait for my order before you start firing useless shots and chipping the plaster. We have a few more important things to consider right now."

"So you do," I heard Alvise murmur musingly. I turned my eyes to the Prince, but his were locked on Clark as the Carthian shifted uncomfortably next to the Ghouls who busily swept up the remains of Nicholas Jackson.

"It appears you've snuck your head off the proverbial chopping block yet again, Master Clark."

Clark pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He reached up with hands that shook just slightly and stilled them by carefully straightened his tie.

"I'm glad we could get that all sorted out, your illustriousness. Now, if you'll excuse me. It's been a good while since I had a feed."

He straightened and turned as if to leave, but was brought short by a slow, chilly smile and Alvise's soft voice cutting through the silence.

"I'm sorry, Master Clark. I don't think you understand."

Clark froze, only gradually finding the sand to lift his gaze to the Prince again.

The unpleasant smile had left Alvise's face, though if anything, it made his pale features more cold, more frightening as they slid into a chill mask. His soft voice lost the touch of velvet that always seemed to accompany it, hardening to a thin edge, clipped and precise.

"I try to be a fair man, Master Clark. With you, I have been more than fair. I have grit my teeth time and time again while you flaunt your ill-planned and ill-fated revolutions in my face. I do not take the destruction of Kin in my city lightly, and so I've gone against my better judgement and allowed you to live. Time and time again I have looked to see in you a response to that mercy. A turn upon a road more...wise. And now this latest betrayal..."

Clark swallowed thickly. He started to speak but he was cut sharply off again.

"For it _was_ a betrayal, Master Clark. I hope you hadn't thought I had forgotten about that. You may have come to me in the end, but it was only at the very last moment. Isn't that so?"

Clark laughed softly, baring his teeth like a cornered mutt.

"So that's it, huh? You hold this sham of a trial just so you can sentence me to death on your own time? Nice. Real nice, Al."

Clark fell to his knees as his head cracked sharply to the side, and it was only when he lifted it slowly, spitting blood, that I felt the weight of my gun in my hand again and realized what I'd done. He lifted the dark brown of his eyes to me, but I didn't back down from the flash of accusation within them. I merely turned my back to him and resumed my place, wiping the blood off of the barrel on the sleave of my duster. I'd had enough of his games. And I had my duties.

"Respect," I hissed under my breath.

Alvise smiled crookedly, the expression painted with anger well chilled.

"Indeed, Master Clark, it would do you well to remember your place." He turned, slowly making his way back to his throne. He reached out, lightly running the tips of his fingers lightly along the dark wood before he turned to face us again.

"I think it's about time that you do. And that's why I'm not going to kill you, Master Clark. I'm going to have you honored."

Clark didn't seem relieved at this, and I couldn't really blame him. All of us turned our eyes to the Prince, though he was tracing an intricate pattern in the carved top of his throne and didn't seem in any hurry to answer.

"The Carthian Movement in this city has squandered away the last of my patience," he said softly at long last. "Too long have I tolerated the flames of anarchists at my very doorstep. No more. Diana." He turned to look at me, and I stood straight, tucking the revolver I held away again and folding my hands at attention behind my back as he continued.

"Take your Archons. Take whoever among the Primogen wish to witness this." I could hear wood splinter under his fingernails lightly as he drew them over the laquered grain. "Take them to the Carthian Movement headquarters and raze it to the ground."

There was a slight commotion as Clark started forward, his eyes blazing and his hands half-curled into clawlike fists. Alvise didn't move, didn't twitch, just stared Clark down until the Carthian shuddered and pulled back, licking his lips as he forced his Beast back into submission.

I cleared my throat softly and avoided Clark's eyes, fastening my sight instead on Alvise.

"Our last attack on the Carthian holdings destroyed many of the Ghouls but there will still be a hefty number of Kin to resist us. Do you wish us to take any prisoners?"

The Prince didn't answer me right away. He descended slowly from the dais that held his heavy throne, stopping a foot or two in front of where Clark crouched half-knelt before him.

"No prisoners. No mercy," he said softly. "I want you to salt the earth on that miserable plot of land." He leaned down slightly, reaching one pale hand to tip Clark's chin up so their eyes met.

"And you, Master Clark...you will lead the charge. You will make sure every last one of them is dust and ash. Or I will personally make sure you've seen the rise of your last moon."

Clark stared up at the Prince, his hands curled hard into shaking fists at his sides. I slipped one hand within my duster, curling my fingers slowly around the heavy hilt of the revolver that rested against my shoulder. It's true Clark was shackled firmly, but I prefer to take no chances, and I thought for a moment he might lose himself to the Frenzy and lash out, ripping from his manacles and tearing at the Prince, so palpable was the hatred on his face.

In the end, though, all he did was nod, dropping his head and releasing a slow, stale breath as he pushed himself slowly to his feet again.

"Excellent," Alvise intoned dryly. "Madame Reeve," he said as he turned his cool gaze to me again. "You have your orders."

**V V V V V V V**

It was hot in the underground parking garage beneath Brookhaven, and the concrete seemed to shake with the neverending vibrations of the enormous ventilation fans. Clark was moving fast ahead of me, his hands shoved hard in his pockets and his shoulders hunched as he marched toward where his sedan was parked. I had to run to catch up with him, and as I tried to grab hold of his arm, he shook me off angrily.

"Fuck. Off," he snarled, baring his teeth to me. I growled in reply and grabbed him again, tightening my hold this time and shoving him back against the wall in one of the alcoves. He struggled against me and we stumbled among the refuse piled there with a harsh clatter before I pinned him hard against the damp stone.

"Don't you give me this attitude," I hissed. "Not now. I trusted you. I've had your back when everyone told me I was insane. I thought you were different. I thought you had a brain in your head. You want to play revolutionary? Well, you deal with the consequences when your grand plans go south, you shit."

He squirmed against my grip, snarling softly and glaring down at me.

"It's so easy for you, isn't it? Moncinegro's fuckin' lapdog. That blood bond has your goddamn brain scrambled." I tightened my hold on his arm, digging my thumb into a pressure point, and he squirmed but didn't go quiet. "The Movement is all I got, Diana. I had a family once upon a time. They're still out there. Children and grandchildren and I dunno what else. But I can't see 'em. I can't touch 'em. I can't hold 'em." His fangs were still bared to me but his eyes were darkening now in sorrow more than anger. "Far as they know, Granpa Eric died in the war, and I can't ever tell 'em otherwise. So what. So I have the Carthians. So I fight with them to make this crapsack city more livable for all of us and now that...that _cunt_ in there tells me...he tells me 'sell them out or die' How the _fuck_ exactly do you want me to logically approach this situation, Agrippa? You think maybe I should take a page out of your book? Go offer to suck that asshole's cock, he'll lighten the sentence a little, huh?"

Before I knew entirely what was happening, I had my hand around his throat, squeezing hard. A pale red haze had flooded my vision, and I could feel it pulsing within me like the heartbeat I had long ago ceased to feel. Every instinct within me told me to give into that seductive red haze, to keep squeezing...crush his trachea and keep digging until I had my fingers wrapped around his spine and then rip...

I reached forward with my free hand, and Clark stiffened as I jammed it in his pocket and rummaged around. I closed my fingers around his cellphone at last and yanked it out, shoving the small machine into his chest before I released my grip on him and dropped him from the wall.

"Call them," I said slowly, still feeling the rasp of the Beast in my voice. "Tell them they have forty minutes to get out of this city on the understanding that they never show the hint of their shadows here again. The Hounds will not persue."

Clark relaxed slowly, gingerly rubbing his neck where I had held him pinned. He watched me for a moment and then looked away, giving a quiet sigh.

"I already did."

**V V V V V V V**

He was quiet on the drive. The neon lights of Baltimore flashed dully through the windows of the old car, lighting his face up in passing shades of red and blue. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, though I pretended my attention was fixed on the dingy, dully lit fasçades of shops and streetwalkers as they flashed by. He had promised me that the Carthians would follow his orders, that we could be sure we would find only an empty house when we came to his Haven. Despite the surety in his voice, though, I'm not sure he was any more certain of that than I. I could almost feel him stewing in the seat next to me, and I didn't know how much of that bubbling hatred within him blamed _me_ for the coming fate of his compatriots: be it banishment or death.

And the more I thought about it...I don't know how much I cared any more. I'd been feeling so tired lately, more than any undying Kin had a right to, and I wasn't sure why. The nights just seemed...like they dragged on and on. Melding into each other in a blur only seperated by the retort of gunfire and the neon lights flashing by.

The rhythmic glare of street lamps over head slowed and then faded as we made our way into the suburbs. The smooth hum of asphalt gave way to the crunch of gravel, but I wasn't drawn out of my own reverie until I heard Clark curse sharply beside me.

"What the flying _fuck-"_

He slammed on the brakes and threw the car into park, and I grunted as the forward motion slammed me into my seatbelt. Clark paid no heed. He left the driver's side door swinging wildly as he vaulted out of the seat and ran forward. I cursed, struggling with my seatbelt and forcing the door open to follow him. When I caught up to Clark, he was standing in the middle of the long driveway to his haven, his mouth hanging half opened like a man who'd just been slapped.

I heard the further crunch of gravel behind me and the soft rumble of engines as Archons Shay, Blackwell, LeLean and Chuluun drew up in an assortment of vehicles behind us. My attention was not on them for long, however, it was drawn, instead, to the figures standing just beyond Advocate Clark.

A tall, lean latino man stood at the forefront, an M-16 cradled almost indolently against his right shoulder. As he stepped forward slightly into the glow of the sedan's headlights, I recognized the dark eyes and angular features of Hugo Ramirez: Clark's right-hand man in the Movement. Behind him were several more figures half shrouded in darkness, some of them I recognized and some I didn't, but all bearing a Beast and all as heavily armed as Ramirez.

"What the hell is this, Hugo?" Clark's voice was strained and tinged with anger and a deep disbelief. "I told you to pack up and get out of here. I told you what the Prince was going to do. I warned you, goddamn it, I _warned_ you!"

Ramirez shifted slightly, turning his head to spit at Clark's feet.

"I expect the dog there to come to me with that sort of bullshit, Clark. Time once was I wouldn't have expected it from you, but that time's long gone now, I guess. Look at you. Standing in front of your brothers with the Hounds at your heels and a loaded gun in your hand." He turned his head, spat again. "You're no more Carthian than that _pinche puta_ behind you."

Clark shook his head sharply, growling and tightening his hands on his guns.

"That's bullshit, Hugo! I'm in charge of this operation and _I_ say how we do things! Now get in the house, pack up your shit and get the fuck out of this city!"

"That wasn't the plan, shitheel," I heard Archon Shay growl behind me, but it was almost drown out as Ramirez switched the safety off of his M-16 and cocked the gun, echoed almost as one by the Carthians behind him. I held up a hand, stilling the Hounds behind me with a silent gesture. _Wait..._

"I don't think you understand, Eric," he said, quiet but with unmistakable danger coloring his tone. "You aren't in charge here anymore. You've been in Moncinegro's bed too long. That's why I'm in charge now. That's why I had Jackson set you up the way he did."

Clark took half a step back, the dark brown of his eyes widened and flashing with a hundred different emotions and none of them pleasant.

"Nah," he whispered. "Nah... Jackson set me up. Jackson-"

"Because I paid him to do it, you _fucking cabrón_! You stand...one foot here, one foot there. You switch sides so many times, I don't think even you know who you work for anymore. You have embarrassed us for the last fucking time."

Clark shook his head, seeming at a loss for words for a moment before he finally looked up again.

"You don't understand. None of you understand. This is just a setback. We'll be back. It's the goddamn smart thing to do, can't you see that?" He took a breath to steady himself, holding out the hand that wasn't occupied with a gun in supplication. "We just have to go to ground for a while. Wait it out."

Ramirez looked up slowly, and I saw the glow of the headlights catch like old embers, reflecting dully in his dark eyes. His voice was soft but it rang out clearly over the assembly, sharp in the air between us.

"I am _sick _of waiting it out. I am _sick _of hiding." He lowered the gun slowly from his shoulder, letting it rest in its sling lazily. "No, Clark. No more running. Tonight we stand here. Tonight we tell the First Estate that they aren't taking one more goddamn inch of us." There was a murmuring behind him and I saw Ramirez hold up one hand and let go of a slow breath through his teeth. I almost thought I saw him smile. "I'll give you one last chance, _maricón_. One last chance to find your balls and stand with us again. One last glorious revolution. Do you remember what that fire feels like, Clark?"

Behind me I felt the shifting of gravel and heard the soft click of metal on metal as the Hounds behind me lifted their own firearms to the ready. Ramirez smiled dryly. He tightened his hand on the grip of his rifle but did not yet bring it to bear. Behind him, though, fifteen Carthian soldiers lifted their weapons and the faint light glittered on stock and barrel and the edges of knives and Hugo Ramirez's cold, hard eyes.

"It's time to choose, brother. Where do you stand?"

I saw Clark stand frozen where he was, a small figure beneath a dim streetlight in the slowly growing drizzle of a cold Baltimore rain. I saw him draw in a breath and then let it go, and I saw it stir the mist that curled around his face, rising slowly from the dampening earth.

I saw him lift his gun.


	8. Don't Call Me Chris, My Name is Elvis

**V V V V V V V**

The rain had died down to be replaced with a chill wind. I sat on the hood of Clark's sedan, one foot propped up on the bumper and the other left hanging as I watched the Hounds pick over the remains left on Clark's once well manicured lawn. My cigarette hung limp between my lips, the sweet smoke filling my mouth and dulling the stench of bone dust and gunpowder when the wind kicked up in fits and blew ashes against my face.

Across the ruin of the lawn, I saw Sing Sing bend down and retrieve an assault rifle. He ripped the magazine out and turned to look over his shoulder at Chuluun and say something crude. At least I was pretty sure it was crude judging by the way the big Mongol was laughing. I found my interest slipping, and soon slid off of the hood of the car and paced back to the porch of the grand manor house that overlooked the smoldering wreckage.

A hunched figure was crouched near the wide stone steps, and as I got closer, I saw half-clenched hands filled with ashes and splinters of old bone. He was stuffing them hurriedly into a small plastic bag, though he froze as I spoke sharply.

"Stop that."

Clark lifted his head Flat eyes, once such a rich brown, met mine and he snarled softly.

"Why should I?"

He started filling the bag with ashes again, but he froze again as the unmistakable sound of the hammer of a revolver being drawn back filled the air between us.

"Don't make me finish that sentence, Clark," I said softly. "Put the bag down. And whatever thoughts you have of carrying that mess back to Belinda and having her put your Humpty Dumbasses back together again...get rid of them."

I saw his hands shake a little on the bag before he threw it aside. The contents scattered, and ash and dust were spilled in a miniature whirlwind around our feet before the wind caught the bag and bore it elsewhere out of sight. He looked up at me again, and when his dulled gaze caught mine I felt something long dead lurch in my chest. I sighed and knelt slowly down next to him.

"It has to stop here, Eric," I said softly.

"It can't," he said fiercely. His fingers were clenching slowly into fists, and I surprised myself by reaching out and slipping one of my hands into his before he could quite close it. He blinked a few times but didn't pull away from me.

"I can't," he said, a little softer this time. "I'm all that's left of the Movement. If I just let this go..."

"Eric, there's no Movement _left_, don't you see that?" He started pulling away from me, but I tightened my hand on his, holding him close. "They _betrayed_ you. They _sold you out_, don't you see that? There is nothing left here that you're going to be able to...to bring down fiery vengeance on the First Estate with!"

He finally managed to yank his hand away and pushed himself to his feet. His dark eyes were blazing into mine as the wind whipped through his tousled hair and he stared down at me like a tyrant deposed.

"Then what the fuck is left for me, huh? You tell me that, Diana. _You tell me!" _He reached down and grabbed me by one wrist, and I was too startled to stop him as he twisted my hand to force the barrel of the gun within it up against his own head.

"This city's been my home since 1924. I'm not leaving. And I'm not bending over for no Invictus guinea _fuck_ with a superiority complex. So you might as well just end this right goddamn now, _Madame_ Reeve."

I stared at him for a long while. Somewhere in the back of my head, I felt the Red Haze begin creeping up, squeezing my chest and flooding my vision with crimson. But the red never managed to burn quite as bright as Eric Clark's dark eyes.

"I don't want you to leave," I said softly. "And I don't want you to throw yourself away. The Movement's dead in this city, Eric. The anarchists and the revolutionaries are dead. The fires, the killings, the kidnappings the terrorism...they've never lead to anything but more death. More loss. More hatred." I lowered my hand slowly, never dropping my eyes from his. "If you want to change things...help me change them."

His jaw was tight as he glanced out over his ash-strewn and bullet ridden lawn and the Hounds shifting through the remains of his comrades before he stared down at me. He said only, "How?"

"I'll speak to Alvise," I said quietly. "You've followed his orders. You've shown you're not stupid. Show a contrite heart to him. A _true_ wish to change things and not just seek revenge. Work with me to show him a better way." A small sigh left me and I lifted a hand to his cheek. "Let me trust you, Eric. My brother in arms. My friend. Stick by my side instead of sneaking around behind my back and we'll make this city something that will live in Kindred _legend_."

He was silent for a long while, and I barely heard it when he whispered, "Do you mean that?"

I pulled my hand back to brush a fall of damp hair out of my face and behind my ear.

"With all the strength left in an undead heart. But we can't do this if you can't decide whose side you're on." I smiled a little. "Lenny would say 'Shit or get off the pot'. If you hate Alvise and you hate the Court...then be on _my_ side. I can't do it without your help. Can I trust you?"

He laughed a little, the sound husky with ash and screaming, and I lowered my hand from his face, a measure of intensity in my voice that surprised even me.

"Eric. Can I trust you?"

He gave a long, slow sigh and then reached out and took my hand again, but this time he raised it slowly and pressed his lips to my knuckles as soft as a prayer. His dark eyes lifted to mine, the brown glowing gold in the streetlamp's light.

"If not me, Diana," he whispered. "Then no one."

**V V V V V V V**

Back at Brookhaven, the Prince listened expressionlessly to the report I made on the events that had transpired at the Carthian Movement compound. Clark stood behind me, his face an expressionless mask that did just an adequate enough job at hiding the rage kindling behind his eyes. Alvise was silent as I finished, tapping the tips of his slender fingers together and surveying us over the tops of them like a man sizing up which lobster from the tank he'd like best.

"Well done, Madame Reeve. And you as well, Master Clark, as entirely shocked as I am to be saying so." The smirk he gave was dark and touched with a quiet, unsettling knowing, and I felt Clark shift slightly behind me.

Alvise rose to his feet slowly, folding his elegant hands behind his back as he faced the Kindred gathered before him.

"Shocked, perhaps. But pleased. With the Carthian threat eliminated and our dear Almoner North returned to us, we can at last return to more pressing-"

"I'm- I'm afraid not."

The voice that lifted among the gathered Primogen was soft and timid, the sort that would have been ignored entirely and lost in the clamor of a crowd had it not just interrupted the Prince of Baltimore. A deep, ugly hush fell over us all, and every gaze turned as one to where Belinda North had stepped hesitantly forward, her dove-grey eyes wide as a child's and one hand lifted just partially from her side.

"I'm...afraid not. Your Majesty."

Light of a poisonous green flashed briefly in Alvise's eyes as he turned them to rest on the slight woman who stood alone in front of him.

"Forgive me, Almoner North," he murmured, his words equal part purr and hiss. "Is there something...you wished to add?"

"There...is." The words came hard for her, halted by fear, and she curled her hands tightly in the fabric of her doctor's coat as if it could guard her from the chill of the Prince's eyes. She lifted her chin slowly, and I felt myself wince. I knew the look that had just crawled onto her face. A look that said she was about to do something stupid and there was nothing anyone could do that would convince her to act otherwise.

"You know me, Prince Moncinegro. You know my face and...and what sort of power is in my blood. So I hope that you of all Kindred will understand why...why I have to do this."

Alvise lifted a sculpted brow, a dangerous sort of amusement brewing in his face.

"Do what, Madame North?"

"I'm...I'm leaving the city. I'm leaving Baltimore."

The Prince laughed suddenly. It wasn't a loud sound, but it was striking and wrong and it cut through the air like a knife. Belinda grew flustered, lifting her voice to overpower the laughter in desperation and growing anger.

"You know I'm right! You know it! I'm the only Kindred who can heal with her blood rather than harm. The only one! This...this massacre of the Carthians...it was my fault. Mine. Yes you can blame it..." She began to pace tightly, wringing her hands. "You can blame it on Mr. Jackson or Mr. Clark, but we all know whose fault it really is. I was the target. This happened because of _me_."

She spun to face the prince again, her chin tilted high like Joan of Arc herself facing the fire.

"We tried to keep it a secret, didn't we. But they found out. Somehow. And now every Kindred enemy you have who does know... They're going to make it a top priority to track me down and use me against you. You know it's true, Your Majesty. You know it. Well. I'm not going to be used as a pawn. I'm leaving Baltimore. I'm going to go far, far away where none of the shadows of this city can reach me. I'm done...done endangering others when all I want to do is heal them."

The Prince shook his head slowly, one corner of his perfect mouth lifted just slightly. He turned, reaching to lift the lovely silver-topped walking stick that rested against his throne as he quietly spoke.

"Permission denied."

"I wasn't asking for _permission_, Moncinegro." She stuttered suddenly as if just realizing the impudence that had made its way out of her mouth and dropped into a deep curtsy. "Your Majesty. Your Majesty... I am merely saying-"

"It doesn't matter," Alvise said softly before he turned to face her again. "Your worries are baseless. My enemies, as you call them, are puppets and children."

"I would remind you, Your Majesty," she said quietly, the sweet grey of her eyes flashing like silver. "Who exactly it was who brought you back from a pile of _ash _when some of those _puppets_ and _children_-"

The blow landed before any of us even saw the Prince move. Belinda was driven to her knees with a solid crack of shattering bone, and the Prince stepped slowly down off of his dais, pacing toward her hunched form. Blood followed in a trail behind him, trickling sluggishly from the silver handle of his walking stick.

"If you _ever,_" he hissed. "Mention that again, I will string you upside down and let the sun burn you from the cunt downwards. You are _my _subject, Madame North. Your powers are _my_ property. If you exist at all in this city, it's because _I_ say you can." He calmed himself slowly, though his eyes still glittered like flecks of emerald. "Your request is denied. You will not be leaving Baltimore."

Belinda lifted her head slowly. Her nose was broken, splinters of bone showed sickly pale in the candlelight, washed over with the dark silken sheen of blood. She glared up at the Prince, her eyes on fire for all the mess of her face. Her words burned in the air between them, clipped and proud as she stood again.

"I will not be held prisoner."

The Prince set the point of his walking stick into the ground. His eyes were half lidded as he gazed down on her, his voice delicate and soft.

"Oh, yes, Madame North. You will."

He turned away from her and gestured faintly. From the shadows, Chuluun and LeLean came. They wrestled the doctor down, forcing her to the ground and fastening heavy manacles around her wrists and ankles. I felt Clark start forward suddenly, could almost feel the Red Rage blazing through him as I reached out to grasp him by his jacket and haul him back to my side.

"Be _still_," I hissed. "Now is not the time."

He struggled against me for a moment and then went still. I kept my hold tight on him, though, feeling him breathe in and out raggedly as he fought for the control he knew he needed to survive this night.

If the Prince noticed our altercation, he gave no indication. His eyes were cool as he turned back to face us again, showing no indication he heard the screams as Belinda was dragged off into the secret halls of the building.

"We have had enough chaos and dissent in this city, and I hope we can agree, my beloved Primogen, that it is time to put a pointed stop to it. Let us not," he said softly. "Forget who we are. _Conventus Invicti._ _Regnabimus intemporaliter._"

_"Regnabimus intemporaliter_..." I heard myself whisper in return, echoed by those around me, save for Clark who remained silent at my shoulder.

With a wave of his hand, the Prince dismissed the collected Primogen. They withdrew slowly, into shadows and dark hallways with no more sound than the whispers of silk. Clark pulled away from me and stalked off, muscling his way through the crowd and slamming one of the heavy doors behind himself. I turned to follow him, but was brought up short by the Prince's voice, soft at the back of my neck.

"Diana...I would have a word with you."

A throng of servants followed us as he lead me to his bedchamber. He strode slowly to the middle of the room, not looking at me as the hungry hands of his Ghouls lifted up to remove his Armani suit and dress him in a silk robe that would have garnered the jealous looks of royalty and commoner alike. When they were done he dismissed them with a casual gesture.

Once the last of them had shuffled out of the room, his piercing gaze fell once more upon me. "Is there something you would like to tell me Diana?""

"I...don't know what you mean, Sir. It's just..."

He drew the robe around his shoulders slowly.

"It's just what, Diana?"

I stepped up to him quietly, fixing the collar on his robe with a delicate touch before resting my hand on his arm.

"I worry about you, my Lord," I said quietly. "I worry that...exhibitions like what just happened with Almoner North-"

"-are entirely necessary," he finished for me icily. He reached up and caught my wrist in a vice grip, yanking me around to face him. "Do not start going soft on me, Madame Reeve. However sweet and stupid the good Doctor might appear to be, she is dangerous. If only because _stupidity_ is dangerous. And I will do everything within my power to convince the Kindred of this city that it is a very bad idea to be so stupid. Fear, my pet," he hissed softly in my ear, pulling me close. "Fear rules this city."

"_You_ rule this city," I said quietly. He narrowed his eyes just slightly but let me take my hand back. I placed it against his chest, letting my fingers graze over the cool marble flesh as soft as a whisper as I looked up to his eyes. "And no one questions that. Oh, there will always be those who wish it were otherwise. There will be the powermongers. The two-faced. The poisonous sycophants... But they know. They know who it is whose shadow stretches over this city."

I took up one of his hands, pressing his cool palm up against my cheek.

"But they need not know it in fear alone. Pain can motivate them, surely, but how much more motivation will they have when they look to you and see not only power...but benevolence. Make them love you." I closed my eyes, pressing his palm hard against my cheek. "And I...I will be the Beast in the shadows. I will be the monster under their beds. I will be the legend they whisper to each other only when the lights are on. Make them love you, my Lord, and _I_ will be your fear."

He was silent for a while, and when I lifted my eyes to him, his were half lidded and smoldering. For a moment I thought I saw something flicker within them. Something like the shifting of very old stone from within its ancient bedrock. It was gone in a moment, though, as he turned away from me and paced slowly across the room.

"Theories," he growled softly. "Are not your strong suit, my pet. Love for a vampire Prince is about as useful as lipstick on a Nosferatu."

My voice was small and sounded tinny and unnatural in my own ears as I softly spoke.

"And what of my love for you?"

He lifted his head and half turned to look at me, and he may have been about to answer, but my attention was caught by a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. A flash or flicker of shadow in one of the great, gilded mirrors that surrounded the Prince's bedchamber on all sides.

It was the work of a moment before my guns are in her hands and leveled at the beautiful reflective surface on the far wall. I squeezed the triggers. And then kept on squeezing them until the revolvers were empty and only shattered glass remained. Smoke hung heavy in the air, and I stood tense in the silence before I felt Alvise's eyes boring into me.

"To what end, Diana," he murmured quietly. "Do you destroy my carefully selected decor?"

I tilted my head fractionally to one side, sheathing my guns in their holsters as I tried to get my expression once more under soldierly control.

"Mercer is no longer in what once passed for his right mind," I said. "I cannot predict his movements at this point and time and I don't trust him." I paced over to the ruined walls and slid the toe of one boot through the pile of shattered glass. "I don't have reflective surfaces in my haven, my Lord. Neither should you. If you are displeased and unconvinced, I will certainly have them replaced."

I shifted my stance to face him again, feet shoulder-width apart with my hands formally folded behind my back. Whether it was partially to stop their trembling, I don't really know.

Alvise gave a short exhalation of irritation. He opened his mouth to speak, but was suddenly interrupted as the door flew open. The entrance bristled with bodyguards, guns drawn and glaring into the murk of smoke and glass as if trying to pinpoint the attacker. Alvise gave a dismissive wave of his hand and they withdrew slowly, some of them shooting suspicious looks my way.

When they had gone, he lightly brushed a few scattered shards off the edge of his sprawling bed and sat, sighing deeply.

"Mercer was never in his right mind, Diana," he drawled softly. "And neither you nor I should be afraid of the so-called 'Looking Glass magic' his fractured mind has cooked up. I sincerely doubt his powers extend anywhere beyond aura reading and being utterly useless and offensive to all five senses."

I frowned and shook my head slowly.

"That's why you have me, my Lord. To be afraid for you."

He turned his head to rest his eyes on me again, and his gaze was cold and hard as iron. "Indeed," he mused softly. "And yet..."

I waited as he watched me, his eyes half lidded and the expression within them veiled beyond the simple chill. He rested one of his hands on the bedspread, crushing slivers of glass beneath his hand as if they could not hope to pierce the perfection of his skin. When he finally spoke again it was slowly, and never once did he drop those terrible eyes from my face.

"Despite his obvious shortcomings, Mercer does seem to have a gift for divining...that which some would prefer to have hidden. Indeed I think it very curious that he suggested to inquire to what..._you've_ been up to these past few nights. So I ask again, is there anything you want to tell me, Diana?".

I know things have gotten bad when I feel the need to breathe at all. When I feel the need to breathe rapidly... Well. I leave it up to your imagination. I could feel the Prince's eyes on me, staring through my clothes and skin to the dead heart beneath. To all the secrets and lies that had been piling up there ever since...ever since...

The light caught in his eyes, glinting like the cold reflection of stars on deep water, and suddenly I felt something within me snap and flood open. It rushed through me like hot blood, forcing itself up through my chest and catching just behind my tongue where I knew I couldn't keep it. Alvise waited, his lips pursed, and slowly I stilled my breathing and lifted my eyes to him. I knew there was terror in them. But I knew just as well that in that moment, they were as hard and cold as his. I lifted my chin just slightly and let the words slip from my lips almost as if I no longer had any power to stop them.

"Gavino once told me," I said, softly but surprising myself with how steadily, "That I may as well have been _your_ Childer, considering how I turned out. I do not lightly give up what is precious to me."

He looked, for a moment, almost puzzled, as if this was not exactly what he were expecting to hear.

"Go on."

I paused, hanging on to one last moment of hesitation. Slowly, as if I had to fight my own hands to make them move, I reached up. I unhooked the shoulder holsters I wore and let them drop to the side, heavy with the weight of the twin ivory-handled Smith and Wessons he had gifted me with. I reached within the duster I wore, took out the further arms I carried hidden on my frame and let them fall to the ground with the first. The revolvers were followed by a pair of .45s, an MK 23 and a heavy, ugly-looking SoCom.

I left the guns in a pile and straightened slowly. My hands lifted again and I stripped slowly out of my overcoat. I tossed it on top of the guns and then, after a last moment of hesitation, proceeded to strip completely until I was naked before him. The last scrap of covering was a pepperbox Derringer I had strapped to my inner thigh, and as this too was removed and tossed into the pile with the others, I went to my knees before him

I lowered my head, letting waves of dark hair cover my face and my expression before I spoke softly, surprised one again at the calm chill in my voice.

"You won't find Ilyana."

I closed my eyes. I could feel his eyes on me, trailing across my naked flesh as heated as the touch of a brand. He spoke softly, his words as sweet as the Serpent's.

"And why is that, Diana?".

For a long moment, the silence stretched between us, and it was as if from far away that I heard the words escape my lips.

"Because I killed her."

For a long while there was silence. I heard Alvise rise from the bed. I heard him circle me slowly, his bare feet as soft as a cat's on the floorboards. I opened my eyes only slowly, watched him pace and circle me as if considering my naked body like a choice meal. The hint of a smirk crossed his face and I closed my eyes, waiting for the blow that would bring everything to darkness.

It never came, though. I opened my eyes slowly and looked up at the Prince. He was staring at me, but the smirk had left his lips. He was frowning, his eyes glittering beneath dark lashes.

"Tell me," he said softly, his voice a low, dangerous purr. "Tell me how and when you did this."

I kept my eyes on the floor, not trusting myself to look up at him. It would have been easy enough to tell him everything in that moment. I had already spilled enough poison to ensure my termination in a most...entertaining fashion at the next Grand Elysium. There was no reason to dissemble further. And yet...

"In the morning," I whispered. "When you had left her sleeping."

Death I didn't fear. But I had seen enough dishonor on my name to last a thousand requiems. And if this were to be the last moments of mine...I'd not spend them implicating my best...my only friend in the murder of an Archon. Even if he were currently wearing the face of a monster.

Alvise gave a low growl, soft but dangerous.

"I know you are good Diana, very good. But I also know that I wasn't gone more than a minute when I left her. It were as if she vanished into air itself. There's something you're not telling me."

The blood was thick in my throat, making swallowing difficult. I dug my fingernails into the floorboards, feeling the wood splinter and protest beneath my touch as I moved slowly to my feet and forced the words out as smoothly as I could manage.

"I took to the Shadow and crept in. She was helpless in her current state. Easily ashed. Easily stored and easily snuck out. I can kill Kin...man, Wolf, or Mage in less time than a mortal can blink. You know this, my Lord. Is it so strange to think that all the years I have on my _sister_ would not make her easy prey?"

"You're lying."

I heard the soft, cold anger in his voice. I should have known exactly what it meant, but I wasn't quick enough. Before I could react, the back of Alvise's hand caught me across the cheek. The force of it sent me to the ground, sprawling at his feet. I landed hard on my hands, a breath of air forced into my lungs to leave in a gasp of pain.

"Tell me the truth," he hissed. "_Now_."

I bit hard into my lower lip as I pushed myself more upright, feeling blood trickle from the torn skin as I fought to keep myself still and answer him with a quiet calm I didn't feel.

"I killed her," I whispered. "That is the truth, Alvise. I don't know what else you want."

"Do you think me a fool, Diana?"

I was driven down again, what air I still held knocked viciously out of me as his foot connected with my side.

"All these years and you think I can't tell when you are hiding something? Do you take me for an idiot!"

His foot slammed into my side again and I felt ribs splinter beneath the assault, driving up into my lungs and shredding inward. I gagged, feeling a rush of blood flood into my throat and curled up, desperately attempting to protect...

"No..." I said, distantly hearing the gurgling whistle of my words. "No...of course not."

He grabbed me by the back of the neck and yanked me upright, wrenching me to my feet. His expression was cold, calm and unconcerned save for the fury in his eyes. He held me close, and I felt only the tips of my toes brush the floor as he squeezed in his hold on my throat.

"Then why," he whispered, his lips almost brushing my forehead. "Do you think you can deceive me?"

I clung hard to his wrists in an attempt to ease his grip and opened my mouth, but even if I'd had an answer for him, I couldn't fight the powerful hold he had on my neck to force any air through to speak it. It didn't seem to matter to him anyway. He was too lost to... He shook me hard, held several inches over the floor like a ragdoll in his grip.

"Do you think I'm stupid, Reeve? Do you?"

I hit the wall hard as he threw me against it, feeling my wrist snap and the world spin before it came back into sharp focus once more when he backhanded me again. I landed hard on a waterfall of broken glass and could only watch through dull eyes as the rich wooden floor turned slowly red when the silver, glittering shards tore open my hands. I could hear his footsteps in shifting glass as he drew up behind me. Feel his shadow fall over mine like a heavy cloud as I lifted a shaking hand to my face.

"What are you hiding from me, Reeve?" he hissed, placing the side of his foot beneath my chin to force it upward. "Speak."

My hands were shaking softly but I forced them to be still. I lifted one to wipe a palm slowly over my eyes, smearing dark red across my cheeks in a mockery of warpaint. Here at his feet. Here with blood in my eyes and glass in my hands I had nothing left. No hope for life beyond this. No hope that a quick death would be my relief. And yet...and yet my stubborn lips refused to speak that one last secret. I've asked myself many times why. I'll let you know if I ever come up with an answer.

"You will kill me," I whispered instead. "Or you will...will send me away. And that will kill me. Can I...can I not be left one dignity? One last honor?"

"You will tell me what I want to know. Now."

His words were slow and careful, and I knew then that I had reached my last chance. I dropped my head, and as if from far away, I watched as slow, fat tears the color of rubies fell onto my hands. Blood in my eyes. Blood on my lips. Cold and metallic as I licked them slowly and with the last thick drops came one last treacherous word.

"Mercer."

Alvise remained motionless, silent, for what seems like an eternity. When he lifted his voice again, low and husky, he only repeated me softly.

"Mercer?"

I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold and seeking the minuscule comfort my own arms provided. All I could do was nod.

The slight movement of my head was arrested as I felt Alvise twine his fingers in the loose waves of my hair and yank upward. Tears sprung again unbidden to my eyes as he hauled me upright by the fistful of dark locks he held, high enough that he could look me straight in the eyes.

"Tell me," he purred softly as he tightened his grip just faintly. "How a reeking, impotent

buffoon such as Mercer was able to not only infiltrate my Haven, sneak into my own bed chamber, kill a trained assassin, but also leave not so much as an upset _bedsheet_ behind."

I met his eyes, and for a moment the only sound between us was the occasional soft clink of falling flecks of glass. I licked my lips slowly again, and for some reason...some damnable reason I whispered to him, "So-called Looking Glass magic."

I shouldn't have said it. I know that now. I knew it then when I saw him clench his jaw, his emerald eyes burning with white hot fire. Before I could retract my words...before I even had the time to consider whether I wanted to or not, he clenched his fingers in my hair and slammed my head into the wall. Someone, somewhere gave a strangled, broken sound as he drew back and did it again and again, driving my head into the wood and shattered glass until the fistful of hair he held pulled free from my scalp and I fell to my knees. I felt the back of his hand again, driving my fangs into my lips and splitting the skin open in a rush of cold blood. It was thick in my mouth, gagging me as I felt Alvise's heel slam into my throat and force me onto my back.

"How dare you..." he whispered, his soft, velvet voice ragged with rage. "How dare you show me such insolence. You live in such comfort because I make it so. You escape Final Death for the worst of your transgressions because I turn a blind eye. You see each new sunset because _I allow it!_ Do you understand me Diana? Or do you need a little reminder of why exactly I am Prince of this city?"

My eyes were clenched tightly shut. The weight of his heel held me pressed hard to the floor, and all I could do was give a faint shake of my head.

He pulled away suddenly, releasing me and turning to walk to the large window in the south wall of the chamber. I willed my eyes open partially, watching him as he braced himself against the window frame and surveyed the lights of Baltimore twinkling far below.

"What is he capable of?" he said at last, his low, growling words so quiet I almost didn't hear. I swallowed, bracing myself on my hands to lift myself just enough from the glass littered floorboards to look at him.

"I don't...know. He can...speak through mirrors. See through them. Sometimes...sometimes I've seen him step into them and just...disappear. Beyond that..."

I could see his cold eyes reflecting, catlike in the glow of candlelight as he looked back at me.

"Beyond that?"

I shook my head slowly, but the pain brought on by the motion made it a short one.

"I do not know."

Alvise turned back toward the window and stared out at the city below him for a while. I don't know if hours or minutes passed. My head was so hazy that I began to wonder if he had forgotten I was there. Or if any of it had really happened at all. Finally, though, he spoke again, his words careful and measured.

"I am...upset with you, Diana. You disobeyed my orders to leave Mercer in exile. You plot and scheme behind my back. You have destroyed something I was having at least marginal satisfaction with. And to what end, Diana? To what end?"

I licked my lips dryly again, knowing my own whispered answer to be almost inaudible.

"I have no answer that would satisfy you."

I closed my eyes again, once more waiting for my judgment to fall. I don't know what it was that made me open them again. Something in his voice perhaps. Something that wasn't entirely surprised to find half a smile on his face when I raised my gaze up to him.

"Were you afraid I was going to replace you, Diana?"

I swallowed again, trying to force the gathered blood from my throat as I turned my eyes once more to the floor to answer him.

"I am deadly and powerful. Fast and ruthless and devoted. So was she." I closed my eyes slowly, trying to stop the press of unnatural tears against my eyelids as I whispered, "And she was beautiful."

I heard his footsteps first, crossing the chamber slowly in quiet, measured tread. Then his arms were around me and he was lifting me up and holding me against his chest. Gentle as the touch of a lover he caressed my face, smoothed back my hair heedless of the dark blood that marked his fingers at the touch.

"So are you, Diana," he whispered.

I was still for a moment more. All time seemed to stop, and for a held breath there was only he and I in the whole world. And his arms were around me. Something deep in my chest cracked so hard I was surprised it didn't make a sound, and suddenly it was all I could do to sink against him, pressing desperately close and shaking hard.

"I'm sorry..." I whispered, over and over again buried against his chest. "I'm so...I'm so sorry..."

He ran his fingers gently through what remained of my hair, the whispers that left him soft and soothing as any lullaby.

"I know you are," he murmured. "I know. Shhh..."

Beneath his murmurs my words were slipping from me in a torrent I couldn't stop. Tears half of relief and half of sorrow slid down his chest, marring the perfection of his sculpted skin and garbling my whispers until they were half unintelligible.

"I don't know why I... I just...I love you so much...and it hurt... It hurt so bad...and I just went crazy..."

"Be silent, my Reeve." His words were soft now, gentle and soothing as the cool hand he stroked my shoulders with. "Be silent... All is forgiven. Let's get you cleaned up"

I felt his lips on my forehead and shuddered just faintly before I managed to still myself. His hand touched my cheek, drying away the tears that smudged my cheeks dark red. I went quiet beneath this touch, just trying to drink in the silk of his fingertips before I managed to shake my head slightly.

"Not...not Dr. North. I'll heal myself. We needn't...bring Dr. North into this."

I felt his lips curl slightly against my skin as he smiled softly, whispering, "Are you afraid of the Good Doctor, Diana?"

I shook my head, and at last found the willfulness within myself to lift a hand and trace my fingertips across his lower lip.

"No..." I whispered. "She's just... She's..." I let go of a low breath and gave up any hope of truly trying to explain the twist of guilt in my gut when I thought of Belinda. "She wouldn't understand."

He kissed my fingertips as they meet his face, a glint of amusement showing in his deep eyes. "There are a great many things Almoner North doesn't understand."

I smiled just slightly before I noticed the state I'd left the fine silk of his robe in and instead took a step back in horror.

"Oh Christ..."

He raised a brow and then smiled just faintly as he saw what had caught my attention.

"Don't worry," he murmured, drawing my hands into his. "They make more." After a moment's consideration, he added, "Actually this was a gift from the Prince of Milan before I left the Old Country, so I suppose they don't anymore." He laughed softly. "But no matter, as I recall he gifted an entire chest of them to me after I resolved a few disputes in his City a number of years ago..."

His eyes flashed again, both fire and ice within them as he drew me back onto his bed.

"In any case...I don't think I'll be needing it anymore this evening."

Mere moments later, his hands were on me, caressing where they had been cruel, soothing away the tears and the agonies with kisses that burned like white embers. Gradually the terror and pain faded into the aching fire of need his touch birthed in me, and I let myself fall into the lust in his eyes and the power in his need, and the teeth at my throat. It washed over me like a warm blanket, cradled me close in a fairytale I kept locked away inside myself somewhere private and dark.

It was almost enough to make me forget how much the flicker of candlelight on shattered glass felt like a thousand watching eyes...silent and waiting.


	9. When Angels Deserve to Die

Author's Note: Well, holy shit here we are again. I know I keep dashing all y'alls hopes that I've finally given up on this bit of nuttery, but it's not to be. ;) This chapter is a little on the short side, but I needed to just stop picking at it and get it out there or I'll never finish this tale and that would make me sad. Also, the next chapter is going to be massive, so hopefully that'll make up for it. I also wanted to say thank you to the kind people who've reviewed this. Any time I got really stuck, I'd go back and glance at the comments again, and they always made me smile and push forward. You're all awesome, and I hope you enjoy.

~EC

"_Try it again. I'm freezing my whatnots off out here."_

_I bit the tip of my tongue and reached up to knock once more on the side of Stow-N-Go container #17 as I had been doing for the last five minutes. Keeper Rhodes shifted irritably behind me, scowling as he hunched down deeper into his Greatcoat and Clark sighed, cupping his hands to try and keep his crumpled Lucky Strike lit. _

_The wind was up off the bay, flecking us all with cold saltwater and the smell of the sea as we stood in the huddled mass of storage containers hunched on the coastline like a maze of discolored gravestones. _

"_This is a waste of time. Let's just go."_

_A sudden, mournful gust of wind cut through the alley, stealing Clark's words away with it. It rattled through the halls of concrete, echoing off the cold stone like the sound of far off crying._

"_We're not going without Archon Mercer. Nobody else can see the things he sees so it's pointless to even head out there without-"_

_I paused and held a hand up for silence as I saw Clark open his mouth up again to argue and tilted my head, straining my ears against the sound of the storm. And that's when I heard it. _

_Not the wind. _

_Sobbing. _

_Soft, terrified sobbing just barely audible against the edge of the wind._

"_Lenny?" I whispered._

_I heard the quiet sob catch and then break into a whimper; a low, wordless whisper of agony, and before I even knew what I was doing, I had thrown my shoulder against the steel door, denting it deeply but doing nothing to budge it. I grunted in pain and then knelt and tried to work my fingers under the steel as Clark and Rhodes blinked at me in confused unison._

"_Help me, dammit!" I hissed at them, straining my muscles against the unmoving metal until I felt them begin to tear. Clark shouldered in next to me and with a final shove and the shriek of wet steel we forced the rusted door back into its frame and stood blinking into the inky black of the interior. _

_The soft whimpering was still there, now louder that the roar of the wind was a dull echo outside the concrete walls. I reached one hand up, feeling a faint trembling in my fingertips as I searched blindly for the hanging cord that controlled the single bare bulb in the ceiling. There was a soft click and I blinked again as the room was abruptly thrown into violent relief in the unnatural glow of the flickering light._

_ It was bare save for a heavy crate I think was used to ship a refrigerator at some point and a tall tower of pizza boxes in one corner that a fat black rat was perched on top of, eyeing me maliciously. I ignored him and pushed further into the dingy room._

_I found him behind the crate, crouched against the wall and trembling like a frightened child. I let go of a slow, relieved breath and knelt down slowly at his side, reaching out to touch his shoulder gently._

"_Lenny?" I whispered. I heard Rhodes snort behind me at the familiar use of Mercer's first name in mixed company and took great pleasure in ignoring him as I moved my hand to Lenny's cheek. "Lenny, it's me."_

_I saw him jerk slightly and the strange silver of his eyes shone like a cat's in the harsh light as he lifted them to me. Tears slid slowly down his cheeks, blood red against the marble of his skin._

"_Help me…" he whispered. "They're they're they're they're everywhere. Make them go away. Please…Diana Diana Diana please…please make them go away…" _

_I frowned softly, brushing my thumb across his cheek to wipe away the trail of bloody tears._

"_Make what go away? Len, there's nothing here but you and me."_

_He shuddered and then lowered his eyes again, and as I followed his gaze I felt my stomach lurch in unaccustomed nausea._

_ The palms of his hands were torn open, the flesh peeled back to reveal twitching sinew and bone. He was rocking himself slowly, shuddering as he dug his broken fingernails into his palm, deeper and deeper into the ruined mess that had been his hand._

_ "Oh god…oh god they're in my hands they're in my hands they're in..." He was breathing in his panic, his shoulders hitching painfully at he clawed frantically deeper, splintering bone with a wet snap. I reached over, grabbing his wrists and wrenching his hands apart as I tried to catch his gaze._

_ "There's nothing there, Lenny! There's nothing-"_

_ "THEY'RE IN MY HANDS!" he screamed, pulling against my grip in terror, struggling weakly to break my hold. He shuddered as I held fast; slowly looking up at me with eyes locked a thousand miles away and yet still desperately searching mine._

_ "Please…" he whispered. "Please, get them off, Diana please get them away…"_

_ I stared at him for a long moment, and then slowly slapped my hand firmly down on his arm, grinding my palm against the greasy wool of his coat._

_ "I got one," I whispered, never dropping my eyes from his. "Is it dead?"_

_ He shuddered and twitched, his eyes flashing like rain beneath the streetlights as he followed the movement of my hand then slowly looked up at me again. I don't know what he saw. Don't know what nightmares were playing themselves out behind his eyes. But he shuddered deep and then gave me the faintest suggestion of a nod._

_ "Okay…" I whispered. "Okay, we'll get them." I felt my dead stomach give another unwelcome lurch but held tightly to Lenny's blood slicked hand as I searched the pockets of my duster for the cheap cigarette lighter I knew was there. Cold, wet fingers closed around the plastic at last and I flicked it into life, shielding it from both our gazes at first. _

_ I held the catch down on the lighter and let it burn as long as I could stand, heating the metal around the tiny white flame until it began to blacken and warp. Taking Lenny's wrist firmly in my free hand, I turned his palm upward and stared hard into his eyes, willing him to focus on me. And willing myself to play the part I had to play._

_ "Hey," I whispered. "Hey. I'm gonna get them out. I'm getting them out, Lenny, you just have to be still." I didn't wait for him to nod. I didn't know if he could really hear me anyhow. But I held him fast and pressed the burning metal tip deep into the bloody, shredded meat of his hand._

_ There was a soft hiss and the smell of burnt skin and Lenny screamed hoarsely, burying his face against the stiff material of my coat and biting down. He shook but he didn't pull away from me, and I pressed the blistering lighter down into his other ruined palm in turn, burning away monsters that only he could see. _

_ I dropped the lighter from shaking fingertips and began slapping at his clothing as he clung to me, crushing figments beneath my outspread hands._

_ "Get off him," I whispered, slamming my hand against his jeans and heavy coat and against the bare, empty concrete. "Get off get off GET OFF!"_

_ "What…the hell…is this?"_

_ I looked up to see Rhodes standing almost over me, his hands deep in his pockets as if he were trying to draw himself as far away from the surrounding filth as he possibly could. I sighed inwardly and kept my attentions on the invisible battle I was fighting._

_ "Archon Mercer's not feeling well," I said tightly. "He seeing…I don't know. Help me get rid of them."_

_ One of Rhodes' dark, perfect brows slowly climbed his forehead and he stared at me as if I had to be out of my mind. _

_ "Get…rid of them? What exactly are we supposed to be getting rid of?"_

"_Dammit, Rhodes, I don't know…bugs or something. Spiders or lizards or the fucking Easter bunny in a clown suit! How would I have a god damned idea what they're supposed to be!"_

_Rhodes gave me a flat stare and a long suffering sigh for my trouble._

"_Madame Reeve. I am an artist, not a psychiatrist. How do you propose I rid Master Mercer of a figment of his imagination?"_

_I grit my teeth in frustration as one of my hands found a piece of shattered glass on the floor._

"_I don't care, Rhodes. Slap them. Crush them. Stomp on them. Use fucking bugspray for all I care, he just needs to see it done!"_

_Rhodes snorted and started to turn._

"_I mean no offense, Madame Reeve, but there is…nothing…there. Mercer's obviously just having another of his…eccentric fits. I'm not dancing around like a monkey to scare off pink elephants when I'm still not entirely sure why we had to come out to this…charming little domicile in the first place. He's quite clearly out of his mind and of no present use to us."_

_He tightened his Greatcoat around his shoulders to step back into the cold but froze as a sudden low, metallic click retorted sharply in the small room._

_ For once that night, my hand wasn't shaking. My grip on the Smith and Wesson was unforgiving as iron, my knuckles locked and bone white in the glow of the inconsistent light as I held the heavy gun leveled at the Keeper of Elysium._

"_I don't think you heard me, Rhodes," I whispered, surprised to find my voice so calm and even. "I said Archon Mercer needs us to get rid of whatever it is he's seeing, so we're going to get rid of them. Now start stomping on the imaginary bugs. Or I will blow your __**fucking**__ head off."_

_He glared daggers and nails at me. But he did it. He glared at me and he stomped away at the cold, empty concrete floor in his expensive Italian leather shoes, and I slowly lowered the gun, wrapping my arms around the gangly, trembling frame of the Archon of Baltimore._

"_It's gonna be alright, Lenny," I whispered, my breath just brushing his cheek. "It's gonna be alright. I'm gonna take care of you now…"_

VVVVVVV

The next night had only barely seen the last of the fleeting autumn sun when I found myself standing in the shadow of a decaying brick building deep in one of Baltimore's forgotten East side Burroughs, the chill wind biting against the abused flesh that I hadn't yet been able to entirely heal. I glanced down at the Rottweiler seated next to me, licking at his leg in disinterest. He was waiting from me when I left Brookhaven, pacing the broad concrete steps and wagging his stump of a tail excitedly. I had followed him this far, to the crumbling, graffiti stained brick of what remained of Abbot's Magical Doll Factory, abandoned for almost twenty years now, and in the dank chill of fog that rolled off the restless bay and crept through the streets, I gazed up at empty windows that leered back down at me as if in disapproval. In the distance, I could hear the wailing of a siren, far off from this place of broken streetlights and dessicated scrub grass reaching up through the splintered sidewalk.

"Are you sure this is the place?"

The look Garm gave me was pointed and I sighed. The ground at my feet was littered in broken glass and spent cigarettes and worse, making a stealthy approach near impossible as I slowly passed through the yawning mouth of the central gate. The fancifully filigreed security doors had been padlocked once, but now the chain was broken and the only thing that barred my entrance into the darkness of the factory's interior was a heap of twisted iron and my own trepidations.

Particles of dust and mold danced lightly in what faint light pierced the gloom through the barred windows high on the wall as I walked in utter silence save for the dull thud of my own footsteps. Along the passage, stacks and stacks of ancient cardboard boxes moldered in sad heaps, some of them tipped so their contents of manufactured limbs spilled out in disorganized heaps; here and there a guileless face with Cupid's bow lips stared up vacantly from a sea of severed arms of perfect proportion.

The smell of decay was thick in the air, but it couldn't entirely mask the smell of blood that hit my nostrils as I turned a corner in the passage and stepped out onto the main factory floor. Not even my eyes could completely pierce the darkness of this place, but I could feel in the movement of the air how vast the space around me was. Shadows of behemoth machines loomed overhead out of my eyesight, their shapes made strange in an inconsistent light that glimmered at the far end of the room where I could see a figure hunched over in a chair as if sleeping.

I stepped forward cautiously. It wasn't that I didn't trust Garm's nose. But, I hadn't truly _seen_ Lenny since the night of the Gala what felt like a lifetime ago. This may very well have been one of Simon's cruel attempts at humor. In fact, that's what I was expecting and why the weight of my handguns tugged reassuringly at my sides as I moved through the stagnant gloom.

There was a soft crunch beneath my feet, and I looked down to see I'd stepped into the chest of a discarded porcelain doll, its head half caved in and its eye sockets empty. I lifted my foot slowly and the doll let out a few slow clicks and a distorted sigh of "Mmmmmaaaaaaaa..." as the little wind-up mechanism that must have been in its chest gave a tinny little death gurgle.

The figure in the chair snapped its head up suddenly at the sound, and the glare of the work light caught squarely in its eyes, reflecting twin pinpricks like far-off headlights. I froze. We stared at each other, this hunched figure and I, until a soft, weary voice whispered across the space between us.

"...Diana?"

Perhaps I should have been more cautious, but there was something about his voice. Something Simon, for all his guile, could never imitate. Something sad and something old and something that had me running to him heedless of the porcelain that cracked beneath my feet and the looming shadows that hung ominously above me.

"Lenny," I breathed, hesitant, for reasons I couldn't put name to, to bring my voice up to more than a whisper as I knelt before him and tried to take his hands in mine. "Lenny, I've been so damn worried, I-" My words stuck in my throat suddenly as I heard him hiss in pain. I looked down slowly to where I held his fingers entwined and suddenly I understood where the smell of all that blood came from.

He laughed quietly, a sound that hissed through his teeth with effort, and flexed his fingers slightly against the arm of the heavy chair he sat in. It's all the more movement his hands could manage.

"You'll forgive me if I don't stand..."

One of them...one of his hands... was cuffed tightly to the arm of the chair. The other...the other was pinned in place, thick carpentry nails at least four inches long driven through his wrists and between the bones of his hands and into the heavy wood.

I shook my head tightly, lifting trembling hands to his face and pushing locks of dark, tangled hair away from his pallid face.

"Who did this to you?" I whispered tersely. I reached down, scrabbling, trying to find a place between his hand and the unyielding nails where I could get the purchase to pull him free. "Who? I swear, I-"

"Diana, stop."

The words were so calm, so quiet despite the state he was in that they brought me up immediately short and I stared at him, trying to find reason in the eyes I had missed so much. His words were slow, spoken carefully past the agony he must have been in.

"You're late; the champagne's flat and warm." He licked his lips and then shook his head as if this could help him clear it. Maybe it did. His silver gaze was more focused as they fell on mine again and something I saw in them made me think he wished he could be touching me as he spoke. His binds, though, held him fast. "I did it to myself," he said carefully. "You have to understand...I'm not gonna leave this place. I can't leave this place."

I stared up at him, my hands still tight on his wrist, mindless of the anguish it must have been causing him.

"Why?" I whispered, searching his face desperately. "Lenny, I can fix this... I promise. Just let me try. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm so sorry I hurt you, but you don't have to stay here, I-" He simply stared at me, letting me babble until my words ran dry under the stillness of his gaze.

"I can speak to Alvise," I said finally. "I can fix this."

"No," he whispered. "You can't."

I felt my grip loosen slowly as he laughed, a sound quiet and desperate. "You can't but I can, Diana. I can." He lifted his eys just slightly, a subtle, furtive movement that I was only just able to catch.

Up above us, through the shadows of derelict machinery I could just make out the faint glimmer of the dull city lights against the clouds through the cracked glass of windows set high in the mildewed walls. For a moment, I was unsure what he was getting at, and then I noticed the angle of the windows...and the fact that the heavy chair he sat in was bolted to the floor.

"You can't be serious," I whispered. "Lenny, if you stay here, as soon as the sun comes up-"

"I'll die," he finished for me tersely. "That's the idea. You shouldn't be here."

"Lenny..." He was trembling softly, breathing raggedly and rapidly. And when I reached up to touch his cheek he jerked his head back violently from my hand, his strange eyes burning as he lifted them to me again.

"You can't be here!" His words were soft but fierce, a desperate hiss forced through his teeth. The fire in his eyes faded then, slowly replaced by the more familiar mixture of fear and sorrow. "Diana..." he whispered, those pools of silver pleading with me to understand. "You don't know what he'll do..."

I shook my head shortly and went back to examining the best way I could free his mutilated arm from the chair.

"We are going to get you out of here," I said sternly. "No one's going to hurt me. Not you. Not...him. I am Reeve of this city, goddamn it, and I wish for once you'd-"

"_Agrippa_."

The forceful bark of my name brought my head up sharply. Too late I realized my mistake as our eyes locked and I felt him boring forcefully into my head, locking his will with mine. Through the haze of the vice-like grip I could feel him tightening on my mind, I could barely make out a dark smudge...a single bloody tear cutting its way down the grime on his cheek. Nonetheless, his voice was tightly controlled and the dominant hold he had on me never relaxed for an instant as he spoke.

"Diana Agrippa. You are going to stand up. You are going to turn around and you are going to leave this place. Without me. Alone."

I felt my body jerk upright against my will, forced like a puppet under the power of his gaze.

"Leonard Mercer..." I growled, cursing the vampire who first thought of this power for the thousandth time. "Don't you dare do this. Don't you dare..."

"...and never come back." He finished softly.

I jerked around, stiff and unnatural and scattering shattered porcelain beneath my feet. I couldn't see his face. The gloom swallowed it up swiftly as his head dropped to his chest again, and my forced march toward the exit kept me from looking behind. The darkness closed around him behind me, muffling the syncopated flicker of the electric light and the soft sound of his last words behind me.

"Goodbye, Diana..."


	10. Marie Douceur, Marie Colere

I don't remember much of the trip back to Brookhaven to tell you the truth. I left Garm at the doll factory, trusting the Rottweiler to find his own way home as I swung myself up onto the tattered seat of my Ducati and revved the engine to bring me out of the maze of derelict buildings and into the rush of evening downtown traffic with the faint squeal of complaining tires. The rest is a blur of wind and traffic lights and the blare of angry car horns behind me until I pulled up under the covered awning sheltering the high glass doors that lead into Brookhaven.

I left the Ducati for the valet to deal with and pulled off my helmet as I raced up the broad stone staircase. My steps slowed when I approached the doors. I had to be careful in my initial approach, after all. The last thing you want in any Invictus court is one more reason for tongues to start wagging. I like to think I looked mostly collected as I made my way into the building, darting quick glances around to make sure no one took special note of my entrance. The quiet murmur of the building remained at its usual low levels, interspersed only with the occasional ring of a telephone or the click-click-click of hard-soled shoes on marble tile.

With the second nature born of endless repetition, I made my way through the labyrinthine maze of corridor and stairwell until at last I reached my office. I shut the door behind me, cutting off the dull white noise hum of a hundred drones at work and here, here for a moment out of sight and mind...I felt myself actually relax. As much as I ever do, anyhow. Letting my helmet fall from nerveless fingers, I sank slowly into the plush covering of the chair behind my desk and buried my face in my hands.

I'm not sure how long I sat there like that. Hours. Minutes. The space of a heartbeat or a blink while my thoughts spun around in my head like leaves in a hurricane. When staring into my hands provided, surprisingly, no answers, I pushed myself to my feet and started pacing the room. I let the thud of my heavy boots, soft against the marble floor, fall subconsciously into measured rhythm. A metronome to keep me tethered for a few moments longer to this earth. Long enough to let me think, if I was lucky. Out of habit, I lifted a hand and curled it around the small, plain locket I wore around my neck.

Lenny had made me leave him and to leave Lenny would be to lose him. To lose the man I had to admit had become my best...my _only_ friend. He knew that just as well as I did. He counted on it. Wanted to be lost. I tugged the chain gently as I watched the glare of flashing ambulance lights pass outside beyond my window silent with distance beyond the thick glass. But to try and save him would essentially be an invitation to Alvise to give me as a gift to the sun...after he had spent a suitable amount of time making me beg Him to grant me that mercy. Simon's insolence had seen to it that the Blood Hunt remained in place and Alvise did not suffer insolence gladly, as I well knew. And could I blame him? Lenny, whatever his intentions, harbored a monster and a dangerous one at that. I should trust my Prince. To do otherwise would be treason. Blasphemy.

I tugged on the chain once more. Loss or agony. A broken heart until pain muted it or mutilated flesh and a fiery end. A choice that chattered in my ears first for one side and then the other in a voice that grated like the endless shrieking of a whirling cloud of bats.

I yanked again sharply and blinked as I felt the chain give way with a subtle snap, leaving the locket small and cold in the palm of my hand. Slow, as if half in a dream, I released the small catch and opened the bauble to run my thumb over the photograph inside as if it were a reliquary.

The photograph was old, the colors a little blurred and faded, though the image: a portrait of Alvise and myself together, the Prince standing just behind me with one hand on my shoulder, was just as clear as the night it was taken. 1956, not all that long after Gianpaulo had gifted me to the man who I now call Prince. I traced the edge of my thumbnail over Alvise's face and then slowly frowned, digging that thumbnail along the edge of the locket to peel the tiny picture out and reveal what I knew lay beneath.

Under the first small photograph, concealed save when it was taken out, lay a second. The edges of this one were sharper. The light a little more glaring like a knife that outlined my bare shoulders and the perfect arch of Alvise's foot where it was pressed down on the back of my neck, forcing my face into the smooth wood of the floor.

I touched the picture. It was smooth and unwrinkled beneath the tip of my finger. Perfect. Like He was. In that moment, I felt something...strange rolling in my stomach. It started as an ache and quickly grew to a pulsing nausea, thrashing like frenzy as it bubbled up through me and suddenly my ears were filled with the heavy rush of blood and the sound of someone screaming in fear in pain in humiliation in hate. I threw the locket down as if it burned to touch and again and again and again as if locked in a fever dream I brought the heavy heel of one boot down on the delicate bauble.

I remember I was breathing. I think I was crying. What I do know is that when I finally calmed I knelt slowly at the scene of my crime. I took up the shattered pieces that lay scattered on the floor and held them hard enough to cut my hand before I threw them through the glass of the wide, staring windows and somewhere out into the bullet hum of the rushing traffic forty stories below.

** V**

The first floors of Brookhaven are a cage of chrome and glass. During the daylight hours, they hum with the activity of the lower echelons of power, secretaries, interns, personal assistants in sharp suits and bad shoes moving about through its corridors, some of them unaware entirely of the monsters who hold the deed to this tower. As the elevator takes you higher, though, you come to floors that can only be accessed by key code, areas where no mortal not already a collared Blood Doll or Ghoul ever passes, where the outer rooms with their bright windows facing the outside world are only for show.

Tonight, though, my destination lay downward. Deeper into the underbelly of Brookhaven Tower. Instead, I flipped open a small panel set beneath the large spread of buttons and removed from my wallet a small, slim bit of plastic about the size and shape of a business card. This was slipped carefully into a small, nondescript slot that moving the cover panel revealed before I pressed the second of a column of three small, unmarked black buttons. The doors slid shut, and with a light lurch the elevator started to descend.

When the doors slid open again with a muffled chime, the world I found myself was a far cry from the busy show of power and wealth far above me. These floors were solid cement and the walls were cinder block painted over in a shade of pale, dull green that strained your eyes to look at too long. Exposed wires ran along the hallway, bolted with thin clips to the walls every few yards and snaking up toward the ceiling where they joined bare bulbs behind wire cages. My footsteps echoed hollowly as I walked past banded doors, unmarked and locked.

My destination was at the end of this hallway: a thick steel door set deep into the wall flanked by two heavyset guards...neither of them Hounds but both of them Kindred. No one came down to those levels that still drew breath. They straightened a little as I approached and I settled the comfortable mask of chill indifference over my face again like an old friend.

"Open it."

The guards shared a look and took a last glance at me before the one on the left turned and fit a small rectangle of plastic into the slot beneath the handle and stepped aside again. I leaned my shoulder into the door and twisted the handle, stepping within.

The room I entered was no more than about twenty feet by twenty feet and was nearly empty. The only thing that broke the monotony of the dull grey cement was a single cot against one wall and a battered desk and chair against another that seemed to sag under the weight of several thick stacks of books. A lone figure sat at this desk, hunched over one of these manuscripts in the glare of the incandescent table lamp and looked up sharply as I shut the door behind myself.

"Almoner North."

Dr. North's pale grey eyes widened sharply and then narrowed again. She pursed her lips and put on an affectation of cool disinterest as she looked back to her book. This is not something she was ever very good at.

"Reeve Agrippa."

"I trust they're taking care of you, well enough," I said and paused for a moment before I stepped forward slowly, taking in what ambiance there was to her tiny, personal prison. The walls were bare here save for the exposed electrical wiring that fed her tiny lamp and the dim glow of the fluorescent lights above. I was gratified to see that though the lower levels of Brookhaven are well monitored, there were no cameras at least in this small alcove.

She pursed her lips again. "I am fed and occasionally given access to my books. What more could a girl ask for?" I couldn't miss the acid in her tone, weak though it was, and I suppose I couldn't really blame her for it, but I didn't have time for sympathy, deserved or not.

"I need your help-" I began before she cut me off sharply.

"As far as I'm aware, Diana, Prince Moncinegro doesn't need to send you to fetch me whenever he feels like I'd be of use to him. I'm his slave and his prisoner, after all. Wouldn't one of the brutes outside do just as well?" Her words held a tone of unaccustomed chill and her fingers shook enough to gently rattle the page she held in a vise grip. "I'm not exactly a physical match for them, and I know you must be _so_ very busy with the matters of the realm. You know...bullying the weak and devouring the wounded."

There was the soft creak of leather on leather from my gloves as I tightened my hands slowly into fists, fighting down the anger I could feel rising in my gullet. Now was not the time. She must have seen the flash of the Beast in my eyes, though, as she shrunk back a little bit reflexively. I took a deep breath and made every attempt to cool what lingering heat might be held in my voice.

"Prince Moncinegro," I began. "Doesn't even know I'm down here." I waved her expression of shock away with one hand before she could open her mouth again. "It's Le- It's Mercer." I cast a careful glance at the door and knelt down next to her chair, pitching my voice low. As quickly as I could, I explained everything: the report from Garm, the ruin of the doll factory and what I had found there, Lenny's suicidal resolve and his last quiet words to me lost in the gloom of the decaying factory floor. When I had finished, I came back to myself to find that I was gripping the arms of her chair hard, my knuckles white and my fingernails bloodied.

"I need you to go in there and get him," I said softly. "I can't re-enter the building. His mind may be broken, but that hasn't stopped it from being powerful...too powerful for me to break his Command. But you can. Go in there and try and talk some sense into him for me. Jesus, go in there and knock him unconscious and drag him out if you have to. If there isn't any other way. Get him out of there, heal him...and I'll look the other way. You can go wherever you want after that. Leave the city, leave the continent for all I care."

Dr. North watched me closely for a long while. When she replied, her voice was nearly as soft as mine. I saw traces of hope in her eyes, but the fear in them went deeper. "Lenny is under a Blood Hunt, Diana. He's to be destroyed on sight. You know that just as well as I do if not better. How do I know you're not just...looking for an excuse to...to, oh, I don't know! To accuse me fully of treason. To catch me red-handed and aiding a fugitive?"

I paused for a long moment. What exactly was between Lenny and I...what ever it was...wasn't exactly something I broadcast. I had an image to uphold...an important one, dammit! And the image of the cold and calculating hand of the law was one I always surmised would be infinitely harder to keep in place were the general populace of Baltimore's Kin aware that Lenny occasionally showed up at my Haven and held me kidnapped for extensive marathon showings of The Three Stooges. When I spoke again, it was slowly and with care to my words.

I decided to try appealing to her sense of...comradeship. I am not...very good at that..

"You've known me a long time. You were always there to patch me up after a rough fight."

"I also know your loyalty to the Prince borders on madness," she answered me quietly. "I've never known you to disobey him before, and you'll have to forgive me if I'm more willing to trust the strength of his Vinculum than your word." I took a deep breath, forcing that easy anger down again with effort.

"And you also know that I've put my neck on the line for you and Clark. Numerous times. And it almost always came back to bite me in the ass, but I did it anyway. Madame North...Belinda," I amended myself a little begrudgingly. "If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't go through such a complicated way of doing it. You know me. I have all the subtlety and guile of a charging rhinoceros. If Alvise finds out... If He found out, I'd be just as dead as you. Please," I said softly, silently infuriated at how weak the words I couldn't stop made me sound. "Please... He's my friend."

I don't know how long we sat staring at each other. However long it was, though, her expression eventually softened before she lifted her gaze to the door

"They won't let me go," she whispered. "There's always at least two of them out there. Even during the daylight, I think." Her eyes followed me as I pushed to my feet and look down at her.

"Madame North," I said dryly. "I may have come to you for help, but I am _still_ Reeve."

I silenced her protest and grabbed her lightly by the arm to haul her after me. The guards at the door let us pass without note. I knew they would. It wasn't them we had to worry about. To reach the parking garage and my motorcycle, we still had to make it to the maintenance elevator a few corridors away, and I had no idea of knowing who we might meet before we reached the relative safety of the street. Low ranking security guards were not a problem; most of them were too afraid of me to think to question my direct orders. However, if we had the ill luck that Keeper Rhodes or, god forbid, Seneschal Regal might have had reason to make their way down into the dark layers of the subbasement that day... Well. Suffice to day that if I was found out, I'd consider myself lucky if the only punishment I would have to face was breakfast with the sun.

I kept my hand on Dr. North's arm until we had left the guards well behind us, and in the same moment I released her, I picked up my pace.

"We don't have a lot of time," I said tersely. "And please, for the love of all things unholy, try not to draw attention to us."

"I've had some experience with that, Diana."

Through some gift of fate, we made it to the elevator without being spotted, and I treated myself to a deep breath and a slow exhale of relief as the doors slid shut behind us. We rode upward in silence, Dr. North fidgeting at my side.

"You have to keep it together," I said under my breath as a faint ripple of irritation moved between my shoulders at her restless movement.

"You'll have to excuse me," she said a little tightly and stiffened in a palpable mix of indignation and fear. "Defying the Prince at the behest of the Reeve is a little new to me."

"I'm not... I am not defying him!" I heard the words tumble out of my mouth reflexively and continued quickly to stop the scoff of disbelief I could almost sense building behind her lips. I drew myself up once more, putting on the affectation of disinterest and calm that was so invaluable in holding myself together. "It's more complicated than that. Madame North. Lenny...Mercer, I mean, is not the one the Prince is angry with. Not really. You know he has a few... Well he is not exactly the most held-together. Technically...technically the Blood Hunt was called on Simon."

I felt her stiffen beside me at the simple name.

"You know better than most that Mercer cannot exactly...control what Simon does."

I saw Dr. North's face cloud over and her pale eyes close off. "Yes," she said softly and with a trace of bitterness that fought to overcome itself. "Yes, I know."

I paused. I was well aware what Simon had done to Dr. North two years ago. I was the one who had found her once he had finished. The one who had taken the chains off of her wrists and ankles and covered her nakedness and taken her back to Ravenrook. The one who cleaned up the body of the unfortunate Blood Doll that the sweet, defenseless Dr. North had beaten to death when she awoke from her torpor in a frenzy of pain and fear.

On some level, I knew how difficult it was for her to do all I was asking, no matter how big of a smile she put on or how much she believed in the power of her own often misguided compassion. I really did. I am not, however, the best at words of reassurance, or in pulling my own foot from my mouth when I've put it firmly there. I breathed silently in relief, then, as I was saved from having to do either as the elevator gave an electric chime and the doors slid open with a smooth rumble.

I started to step forward and then froze abruptly as a tall figure stepped out of the near shadows and loomed before me with all the agility of a cat made of moonlight.

"Going somewhere, Ladies?"

** V**

Eric Clark rubbed at his jaw and gave me a baleful look from beneath his heavy brows. "Was that absolutely necessary?"

I scowled at the Carthian Advocate and rubbed my knuckles where they still smarted from connecting with his face. A quick scan of our surroundings revealed that we were otherwise alone, and I sighed in irritation as I turned my eyes on him again.

"I think you're lucky I went for a fist instead of a gun, Clark. You startled the shit out of me. What the hell are you doing down here?"

Clark cleared his throat. "Well," he said. "Whatever it is, it certainly isn't tryin' to bust out Dr. North."

"No," I felt my features crease into a deadpan glare. "Because that would be very, very stupid, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah. I mean...it looks like you already did it, after all."

I opened my mouth and then closed it slowly, gritting my teeth against protests I knew would never sound anything but forced. I fell to my secondary line of defense, then...ignoring him. I reached back behind myself and grabbed Dr. North lightly by her wrist, pushing roughly past Clark and dragging her along toward where I knew my Ducati to be parked.

"Hey!" I winced as Clark's voice echoed unnaturally in the close heat of the parking garage over the rumbling noise of the circulation vents. He trotted forward to catch up to us, and to my high irritation completely ignored the death glare I gave him and its pointed implication that he should, in fact, fuck off.

"So...where are we going?"

I picked up the pace, searching the shadows around us and shrinking back every time some phantom in my own mind seemed to make them reach out toward us. "_We_ aren't going anywhere," I hissed, but Dr. North cut me off before I could expound on where exactly Clark could take himself.

"Lenny's in trouble, Eric. Diana told me he's planning on killing himself. She can't enter the building where he is again, so she wants me to talk him out of it."

I curled my fingers against my palms again, cursing under my breath as I felt rather than saw Clark's dark eyes slide wryly over my face.

"Let someone play puppet with your brain again, huh Agrippa?"

I didn't answer him, but I could hear the grin on his stupid face as he persisted in following behind us. That self-satisfied smile was gone from his tone as he spoke again."Come on. We'll take my sedan."

Reluctantly I stopped and turned to face him, making no effort to hide the impatience in my voice. "Who said you're coming?"

He gave an indolent shrug of his shoulders and searched his overcoat for the crumpled box of Lucky Strikes he always carried with him. He shook one out into his hand and set it to his lips, his words only barely muffled as he spoke around it with long practice. "For one, because Lenny's a friend of mine. He's the only member of the stuffed up shits you call the First Estate who ever had a sense of humor. For two...you're breaking the rules, Agrippa."

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off with a sharp wave of his hand before lighting his cigarette. "I entirely endorse this. But as I'm pretty sure you want to remain under the radar on a rescue of someone who's under one of Moncinegro's Blood Hunts...that means you won't be usin' one of the cars from the motor pool. That leaves your bike. Which last I checked, couldn't hold you, Dr. North, and Lenny all at once, 'less you got some upgrades recently you haven't told me about."

He smiled at me in the way that only Eric Clark possesses. The way that I wanted to hit very badly but could never quite manage to. I sighed and turned away from him, giving the lapels of my duster a savage tug.

"So where'd you park that shitmachine you call a car?"

** V**

Traffic through downtown kept us slowed to a near crawl on the trip back toward the decrepit doll factory Lenny had chosen as his mausoleum. The glow of brake lights and neon advertisements for tit bars and pool halls turned Clark's brown eyes a dull red as he stared ahead into the line of motionless cars.

"What I don't get," he said, breaking the silence after a long while. "Is why Lenny would try and off himself in the first place. I mean...the guy was ash once. So he knows what being _dead_ dead is like, right? I can't imagine that's any better than what we have goin' here. I mean, it's not perfect. But it's not, you know, total oblivion or screaming and hellfire or whatever it is that waits for us." I saw his dark eyes drift up to the rear view mirror reflexively to where he knew Dr. North was seated, though the reflection held no evidence. "Did he say anything when you brought him back the first time?"

Dr. North gave a tight shake of her head. She was leaning against the driver's side passenger seat, staring out the window as if some great message was hidden in the glow of the city sky. "I didn't bring him back," she said softly.

Clark frowned. The patched leather of his chair creaked as he half turned to look at her over the seat back. "What're you talking about? Lenny got Ashed. Saw it with my own damn eyes. Fucking Gangrel split him in half. He was dead as we get, and you're the only one who can do anything about _that_, last time I checked."

Belinda simply shook her head again. "It wasn't me. It wasn't until much later...as far as I know long after Lenny's death that I gained the ability to have...restored him. I remember...I remember soon after I'd unlocked the power, that Vince Marcus came to me. You remember poor Vince... He had a...a soup can or something he'd been keeping Lenny's ashes in. He wanted me to bring him back. But when he opened it...there was only shattered glass inside. Pieces of a broken mirror. And then a few weeks later, Lenny was walking around again. I don't know how it could have happened."

"Nobody does," I broke in softly. I looked up from the barrel of my gun from where I had been restlessly opening and shutting the chamber. "Not even Len...not even Mercer."

Clark raised a brow at me. "He didn't tell you anything? I mean, fuck, if I'd got a glimpse of the afterlife, I'd sure as shit have something to say about it. Especially if it included how to make your way back if it wasn't your ballgame."

I shook my head again and turned my eyes out the window. "It wasn't something he really liked to talk about. He told me a few things, but most of it was...confused at best. He told me about finding himself in a world between worlds. Where everything is a possibility and you could shape your surroundings and yourself in whatever way you could imagine...but nothing was real. Then he'd laugh like none of it mattered and talk about something else."

Clark went silent for a while, concentrating on not rear-ending the vehicle in front of us. "I like the guy. I don't want to sound like I'm insulting him or anything, but...how do we know any of that even happened?"

I shrugged. "We don't. You could ask Mercer that and he wouldn't know either. But the simple fact is...something happened. He was ash and now he's not. For what it's worth, I think it's possible. You saw for yourself what he could do with mirrors. The way he could step through one and appear out another on the other side of the city in half an instant. There's a lot of strange shit in this world. If only proven by the fact that three vampires are sitting in a sedan and discussing the fact. Who's to say that between one mirror and another isn't a world ruled by impossible possibilities?"

"A literal Through the Looking-Glass?" Dr. North spoke up behind us softly.

I shrugged and spun the chamber of my gun. "I've seen stranger things in this city alone. But then again...it's just as likely that there's some other explanation and it's all simply another one of his hallucinations." I exhaled slowly and snapped the revolver shut again. "Perhaps that's why he's doing this after all. Perhaps...he's just tired of not knowing."

The sedan gave a lurch as we finally left the tangle of downtown traffic. We descended once more into uncomfortable silence as the streets began to roll by more smoothly and the cluster of buildings thinned out around us to the decrepit urban sprawl of the outskirts of Baltimore.

** V**

The hunched building seemed to stare back at me from across the alleyway where I stood leaning against Clark's car and drawing deeply and ineffectually from the black cigarette clenched tightly between my fingers. I don't think I can describe to you how maddening that half hour was as I stood and watched Dr. North and Eric head boldly into a building I couldn't, for all my age and power, hope to enter myself. I'm not sure you'd want to hear it even if I could.

Oh no...you don't understand. I had the physical ability to walk across the street and storm into the building, of course, following hot and hard on Dr. North's heels and demanding explanations from my best friend for how dare he staple himself to a chair. But I didn't. I couldn't. That's what you have to understand. I couldn't. That's what vampires can do. If I can tell you anything about what we can do it's to scream at you that we can take away your will. Your very goddamn self. Think about that a moment. The lingering effects of the Command he had given me to never enter that building again were no easier for me to ignore at that point than it would be easy for you to stop breathing because someone told you to. And then again, perhaps my own inability to save him was his parting gift. And there are no words in your language for how much I hated it.

Time passes...differently when you're waiting for something, you know? Maybe you don't, but I have to think you've waited for something at some point, and you know how the tick of seconds passing can start to line up with your heartbeat...if you have one, that is. I didn't at that time. So there was no way to mark the passing minutes save what my own mind could come up with. It couldn't come up with much. I was relieved, then, when after what felt like fifty years later but what really couldn't have been more than forty-five minutes, I saw dark figures make their way through the tangle of the doll factory's old iron gate. I pushed myself off of Clark's sedan and trotted across the street as far as I could force myself to go to join them.

I could make it no further than the very boundary of the fence that surrounded the derelict property, though, before my feet slammed to a stop of their own accord. I felt my teeth grind together a little as the Command I had been given held tight and I couldn't force myself one step closer. Instead, I peered through the gloom, waking the magic in my blood to heighten my senses.

My heart sank faintly as I made out only two figures coming toward me through the cluttered darkness of the parking lot, and neither of them were Lenny.

"What happened?" I asked sharply. "Where is he? You were supposed to get him out of there, god dammit!" I turned to kick the fence sharply, whirling around again as I felt Clark place a hand on my shoulder. "I never would have sent you in there if I thought you'd just let him Dominate you straight back out again!"

Clark gave a low growl that was cut off by Dr. North's soft, sharp voice lifting in the air between us. "Diana, you don't understand."

"What's there to understand?" I shut my mouth abruptly, taming back the rising anger and desperation I could hear creeping into my voice. "I needed you. I -needed- you." I turned away from them both abruptly and rubbed one gloved hand over my face. "You were supposed to save him."

Clark gave that low growl again. "That's what we've been tryin' to tell you."

Dr. North placed a hand on Clark's arm and stepped forward toward me slowly. "Diana..." I could feel her voice soft between my shoulder blades. "We went through every room we could find in that place. And we didn't find anything."

I frowned and turned slowly to study her face. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She lifted a thin frail hand and pushed a fall of fine, pale blond hair out of her eyes. "There was nothing there. Nothing," she repeated softly. "Just dust and mold and machinery and old broken dolls. And...and..."

"There was a chair," Clark broke in from behind her, his voice once more slightly muffled by the filter of a slightly bent cigarette. "Busted chair on its side. Fuckin' blood all over it. One of the arms was missing. Looked like it'd been gnawed off by somethin' big. Dog, maybe."

I felt my features draw into a frown. "If something had happened...there'd be ash. If he were destroyed...there'd be-"

"There ain't no fuckin' ash, Agrippa. And there ain't no Lenny." Clark's voice was a little annoyed, but whatever he saw in my face as he peered at me through the haze of cheap smoke caused him to soften it a little as he spoke again.

"Diana, I don't know where he is. But he ain't in there. If he ever was in that factory...he's gone now."

I gazed up slowly at the factory that loomed silently above us and stared down with shattered windows framed into a grin of jagged glass teeth. I'd been too late. He was gone. Gone... Not to meet the sun, perhaps, but that was cold comfort if it was comfort at all. Lenny wanted to die. So whoever had gotten him out of the death trap he had constructed for himself...it wasn't by Lenny's choosing. And I also knew without question that the only others who would do so with Lenny's best interests in mind were currently standing beside me.

I turned my eyes to the dull dead glow of the sky above Baltimore, thinly veiled from my sight now by a cold mist that was blowing up off the bay. His plan hadn't worked. He hadn't been destroyed. I had to hold to that. He was out there. Somewhere. But he had slipped through my fingers once more. The city and the night had swallowed him up again, and deeper than the comfort of the possibility of his escape was the undeniable knowledge that wherever Lenny was...Simon stood much closer to his side than I did.


End file.
